



Class 3Y4£Oi 


Book_ 



V 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
















GOD’S BETTER THING 






GOD’S 

BETTER THING 

ESSAYS OF CONCERN AND CONVICTION 


‘By 

ALBERT D. BELDEN, B. D. (Lond.) 

Author of 

“ Does God Really Care ? ” etc. 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE JUDSON PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS LOS ANGELES 

KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO 



~3 n M' s °' 


Copyright, 1922, by 
GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary 

Published June, 1922 


Printed in U. S. A. JUL 25 72 
©Cl. A (57761 9 


o | 



TO 

Herbert 

WHO DIED, AUGUST 23, 1917 
FOR THE “BETTER THING * * 

AND TO 

Kenneth 

WHO, PLEASE GOD, WILL 
LIVE FOR IT 


We see in vision fair a time 

When evil shall have passed away , 
And thus Tve dedicate our lives 
To hasten on that blessed day. 

To seek the Truth whatever it be , 

To follow it where'er it leads , 

To turn to facts our dreams of good 
And coin our lives in loving deeds. 


—Minot F. Savage. 


PREFACE 


I am a part of all whom I have met,” said a man 
once when asked who he was. The writer of the fol¬ 
lowing chapters might with truth adopt the phrase as 
the only adequate means of acknowledging the many 
sources of his inspiration. 

One personality, however, stands out in his life as 
having been peculiarly formative of his mode of 
thought, and as having introduced him most effectively 
to the modern standpoint in religion and social ethics. 
That one is the Rev. A. E. Garvie, M. A., D. D., 
Principal of New College, London. The author 
would like to take this opportunity of expressing his 
deep gratitude and that of many other fellow students 
to Doctor Garvie for his bold and enlightened leader¬ 
ship. 

Most of the contents of this book first saw the light 
as addresses given in the course of a busy pastorate. 
They then found a wider public as essays in English 
and American magazines. The appreciation that fol¬ 
lowed these previous appearances is the justification for 
their collection in book form. They are threaded upon 
an intense Conviction and a deep Concern. The Con- 


Preface 


viction is that the evangelical faith is being seriously 
cramped by a purely individualistic application, and 
that it must blossom into the full flower of the Gospel 
of the Kingdom-of-God-on-Earth before it can ade¬ 
quately satisfy the spiritual needs of mankind. This 
new World Order is God’s Better Thing. 

The words of the Master, “ These ought ye to have 
done, and not to leave the other undone,” express 
for the writer the just balance of the individualist and 
social aspects of the gospel. Either without the other 
is dead. 

From this Conviction arises the Concern, the burn¬ 
ing desire, to see the New Evangelism of a Social 
Gospel sweeping the churches like a flame and bring¬ 
ing the complete Christian salvation to individual souls. 
If these chapters can inspire their readers in ever so 
small a degree toward such a consummation they will 
not have been penned in vain. 

Albert D. Belden. 

Crowstone Congregational Church, 

Westcliff-on-Sea, England. 



CONTENTS 


PART I 
CONCERN 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Lame Humanity at the Beautiful 
Gate... 3 

II. The Beasts Before the Throne. 12 

III. The Church and the Social Prob¬ 

lem . 27 

IV. The Two Internationals. 41 

V. The Choice of Democracy... 50 

VI. Challenge or Compromise.. 58 

VII. God’s Better Thing.. 68 

VIII. The Vision of the Ideal and Its 

Comfort. 77 

IX. The Joy of the Generous Heart_ 88 

X. The Church and Spiritualism. 97 

XI. Thoughts Toward Revival.. 108 

XII. “Come” _______....... 120 

















Contents 


PART II 

CONVICTION 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Spiritual Ministry of Nature 131 

II. Is God Personal?_ 142 

III. God’s Joy and Grief___ 1 53 

IV. The Power of Personality.. 163 

V. The King with the Golden Touch... 169 

VI. “ What is the Essential Christian 

Belief? ”.... 179 

VII. The Guardian of the Gate. 188 

VIII. “Jesus—the Sin-Bearer”.. 199 

IX. The Divine Evangelist. 209 

X. Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. 217 

XI. “ The Door of Life ”.. 224 

XII. “ Saint Paul’s Swan-Song ” .233 













PART I 


CONCERN 







I 


LAME HUMANITY AT THE 
BEAUTIFUL GATE 

The Gate Beautiful was worthy of its name. It 
was the eastern gate, we might well say the Dawn 
Gate, of the Inner Court of the Temple. Composed 
of Corinthian brass, a very resplendent metal, it 
towered to a height of nearly fifty feet, its breadth 
being about twenty. A score of men were needed for 
its opening and closing. It was not the most beautiful 
gate of the temple, for each gate, as you penetrated 
the sacred precincts, became more beautiful still. The 
inmost gates were overlaid with silver and gold, and 
upon the door of the Holy of Holies there hung a 
glorious vine wrought in the finest gold—symbol of the 
infinite wealth of God for human need, wealth peren¬ 
nial for need unceasing. 

But Lame Humanity was outside the Beautiful 
Gate. There it was, crippled and begging, fawning 
pitifully upon its fellows for a paltry pittance, bereft 
of dignity, beauty, and power; a poor, mean, broken, 
and battered thing, outside God’s temple. What a 
contrast, in most effective setting! Infinite beauty and 
colossal wealth in stone and metal , ugliness and priva¬ 
tion in life! 


4 


God's Better Thing 


God’s Living Temples 

It is a contrast all too typical of every organized re¬ 
ligion. It may be less typical of Christianity than of 
other religions and of its essential Spirit it is not typi¬ 
cal at all, but of Christendom it is sufficiently true to 
touch all honest hearts with shame. Mendicancy is 
professional in Buddhism, and in Mohammedanism it 
is flagrant. Every mosque, however beautiful, has its 
living avenue of approach in beggars loathsome with 
dirt, disease, and depravity. Confucianism has its 
professional beggary; Judaism was not without it. In 
one sense this is a compliment to religion, since it 
means that humanity in its need finds the shadow of 
religion, on the whole, more kindly than that of the 
world. But it is much more a testimony to the sad 
failure of all faiths as yet to wipe away the curse and 
reproach of human poverty. When we see gorgeous 
and wealthy cathedrals rising from the midst of miser¬ 
able rack-rented hovels; when we see a sight such as 
used to be common in Russia, crowds of hungry, ill- 
governed, hard-pressed peasantry, always living on 
the border-line of poverty, worshiping in churches 
lavishly decorated with gold and precious stones of all 
kinds, the scene before their eyes being literally ablaze 
with the wealth that would mean for them freedom and 
opportunity really to live; when we mark the Beauti¬ 
ful Gate, and the neglected Humanity, we cannot but 
wonder whether God can be pleased that the religion 
which professes to exalt his name should so far forget 



Lame Humanity at the Beautiful Cate 


5 


his nature as to esteem his living human temples of less 
value than temples of stone! 

Humanity First 

It does our hearts good therefore, and corrects our 
perspective, to read of those first disciples of the 
Lord going up to the temple to pray and halting upon 
its alluring threshold to take heed of crippled humanity. 
Doubtless the beggar had often looked wistfully 
through the Beautiful Gate at the holy inner courts of 
the temple, but the cruel necessity of his livelihood, as 
well as his lameness, kept him outside. What a picture 
he presents of the multitude of our own day! They 
too are before a Beautiful Gate! A noble vision of 
the world as one vast happy temple of God, one glo¬ 
rious Divine Home of Perpetual Peace, holds the 
modern heart in thrall. Yet how strangely, terribly 
impotent is humanity to step within its portals. Some 
essential of life seems lacking, some means of move¬ 
ment. Humanity is like a bird with a broken wing, 
like a man crippled of limb. There is no doubt in this 
situation as to where the Christian’s interest and func¬ 
tion should lie. Jesus, much as he loved the glorious 
temple of stone, ever put the temple of the human heart 
first. So did his faithful apostles. The interest of 
Peter and John in this man is a great object-lesson for 
us. It was something so vastly different from anything 
the poor fellow had known before. And he had rea¬ 
son to think he knew men, so often had the greater and 
the less passed by him to their worship. 



6 


God's Better Thing 


The Gates of the Soul 

Probably most of the passers-by who tossed him a 
coin were not thinking of him at all, but rather of their 
precious selves and the merit in God’s sight, which, 
according to Pharisaic doctrine, such a deed stored up. 
We are not without that kind of almsgiving in our own 
day in spite of Henry Drummond’s sharp contention 
that “ one should be too interested in a beggar to give 
him a penny.” But Peter and John had learned of 
Jesus to love men as men; to see beneath the shabbiest 
exterior all the divine potentialities of a redeemed and 
sanctified soul! And so the beggar was startled to find 
himself an object of real interest at last to others. 

The Gate Beautiful was not more beautiful or more 
interesting to these disciples of Jesus than the gates into 
this man’s soul, into the living temple. “ Look on 
us! ” they cry to him. Cannot you feel the mutual 
greeting of those eyes? Eyes that were on the one 
hand full of a great, surging, pitying love, and on the 
other of a great, aching, wistful need. Love has a 
wonderful channel of expression through the eye. 
“ From eye to eye the signal runs.” Whether the crip¬ 
pled man had or had not any one in the wide world 
to love and care for him, he knew at that moment that 
there was a Temple of Comradeship and Love through 
the divinely Beautiful Gates of which he was straight¬ 
way invited to pass. Real love beamed in gentle but 
all powerful radiance upon him, encouraging his soul 
to live. Is it any wonder then that when the Name of 



Lame Humanity at the Beautiful Cate 


7 


Names, the Name of the Perfect Love, was uttered, 
all the forces of life in his soul and body were reen¬ 
forced and quickened, and that they welled up tri¬ 
umphantly over the barrier of his lameness? This is 
what religion is in the world to do. This is what we 
are Christians for—to fling open the Gate Beautiful to 
every crippled and impotent soul. 

Silver and Gold, or Power 

There is another contrast in this illuminating story 
that is very instructive. The beggar asked for money. 
That is not surprising. A society built, as society 
hitherto has been built, on the money standard has no 
right to expect anything else of its beggars. But evi¬ 
dently Peter and John were living by a different stand¬ 
ard. “ Silver and gold have I none, but what I have 
give I unto thee." Not “ such as I have,” which seems 
to carry the suggestion of depreciation with it, as 
though what Peter had to give was not so valuable as 
silver or gold. “ What I have give I unto thee.” We 
remember a time when Peter said to his Lord, “We 
have forsaken all to follow thee, what therefore shall 
we receive? ” How changed he is! Silver and gold 
seem to have lost their charm for him. Was it with a 
touch of shame, I wonder, that later on he wrote, “We 
are not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver 
and gold, but with the precious blood . . 

There is a great story of a certain pope who was 
watching the bags of Peter’s pence being brought into 
the Vatican treasury. Turning to a friend he said with 

B 



8 


God’s Better Thing 


a smile, “ Saint Peter is no longer able to say, 4 Silver 
and gold have I none.’ ” “ No indeed. Sire! ” re¬ 

plied his friend seriously, “ neither is he able any longer 
to say , ‘ Arise and walk? ’ ” Is there no clear mes¬ 
sage in that for our modern discipleship? Anxious 
and rightly anxious as we are to see a more just dis¬ 
tribution of our vast modern wealth, and to see it as 
quickly as possible , yet how tragic it will be if we lose 
in our interest in “ silver and gold ” the gift of essen¬ 
tial power! 

Supernatural Grace 

The Christian disciple is the trustee and steward 
of a supreme treasure for humanity, and it is not silver 
and gold. Peter and John were vehicles of the grace 
of God in Christ. They were themselves, through 
Christ, in touch with God’s own vital energy, in touch 
with Fundamental Power, and being equally open to¬ 
ward humanity, they went through life conveying to 
mankind a spiritual blessing capable of renewing the 
souls, and in some cases at least, even the bodies of 
men. 

Our sacerdotal friends are quite right about super¬ 
natural grace. It is possible to focus through the 
human soul the Essential Creative Force that made 
the heaven and the earth and the body and mind of 
men. They are wrong, however, when they shut up 
this gift of essential power to any given order of men. 
It is for every disciple who will truly associate with 
the Lord , and who will seek apostolic purity , earnest - 



Lame Humanity at the Beautiful Cate 


9 


ness , and love. Every disciple is called into the apos¬ 
tolic succession of a real union with God in Christ, and 
a real union with Humanity in love. 

Is this essential twofold connection sufficiently close 
in the modern disciple to make him a channel of real 
power to lame humanity as it begs outside the Beauti¬ 
ful Gate? There Is a question indeed for us each to 
answer! 

“ They took knowledge of them that they had been 
nnth Jesus." " What I have give I unto thee.” 
There you have the golden cable of Divine Power, 
running through Christ to these men, and through them 
to crippled humanity. 

There is a story of Tolstoy which tells how the great 
Russian reformer was stopped in the streets of Moscow 
by a beggar who asked for an alms. Tolstoy found 
himself without a coin, but putting his hand affection¬ 
ately upon the man’s shoulder and calling him 
“ Brother,” he explained his plight. The beggar 
lifted his hungry eyes to Tolstoy’s face, and they 
were shining with tears as he said, “ Never mind, you 
have given me something better, you said, 4 Brother! 
There is no other way for Christianity to satisfy the 
hungry world of our time. That world is much more 
hungry for real love than for anything else. It is im¬ 
potent to realize its best ideals till it is loved into 
power. And upon those who worship the God of 
Love, and believe in the Love that suffered even unto 
the death of the Cross for us all, upon them there rests 
the onus of Love’s vindication in the world, of being 



10 


God's Better Thing 


the vehicles of its redeeming power to souls palsied 
by sin and fear and doubt. 

Talking once to the Pharisees who thought it suf¬ 
ficient to meet the beggary of the world with doles of 
silver and gold, Jesus uttered this great and liberating 
word, “ Give for alms the things that are within .” 
Jesus, as always, is right. It is our souls we must 
share if Humanity is ever to enter the Beautiful Gate 
of its best dreams. If then in our own souls we know 
the indwelling grace of God by which we ourselves 
overcame, that is our supreme message and gift to 
mankind, and we must not fail to share it. 

Nothing less than this supernatural grace of God, 
flashing from heart to heart and life to life over the 
cable of a great love, can save humanity. Our 
churches must become once again centers of this es¬ 
sential power. Our Christians must become once 
again living dynamos of supernatural energy. Here 
is our one task, our supreme function. However we 
may fail regarding temples of stone, we must not fail 
with the living temples. We must no longer permit 
the lure of silver and gold in any form, whether as 
bribing us with comfort to ignore the awful economic 
need of the mass of the people, or as deceiving us in 
our reforming zeal as to its own redeeming efficacy, 
to tempt us from our true function which is to be per¬ 
sonal vehicles of God’s recreative Grace, through the 
intensity and reality of our love for him and for 
humanity. 

The Beautiful Gate guards the entrance to the 



Lame Humanity at the Beautiful Cate 11 


Temple of the God of Love, and only by real loving 
therefore can we hope to bring any therein or to enter 
in ourselves. “ What I have give I unto thee.” 
“ Give for alms the things that are within.” 

I gave a beggar from my scanty store 
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore. 

And came again, and yet again, still cold 
And hungry, as before. 

I gave a thought, and through that thought of mine 
He found himself, the man, supreme, divine! 

Fed, clothed, and crowned with blessings manifold! 

And now he begs no more! 



II 


THE BEASTS BEFORE THE THRONE 

A Book of Symbols and Metaphors 

The Book of Revelation is quite the most difficult 
book of Scripture to understand. One thing, how¬ 
ever, is becoming increasingly plain from the work 
upon it of modern scholarship, and that is—it is not 
to be viewed as a book of precise detailed predictions 
of coming events far beyond the age in which it was 
written. Very great mischief has been caused more 
than once in the history of Christianity by folk who 
treated this sacred book and the Book of Daniel as 
though they were a kind of Old Moore’s Almanack, 
forecasting in an occult fashion the actual times and 
characters of far-distant events. A closer and more 
scientific study of this Apocalyptic style of literature— 
and there is much of it outside the Bible—has re¬ 
vealed the fact that most commonly underneath the 
veil of symbol and metaphor there is a definite refer¬ 
ence to current or recent events and historical asso¬ 
ciations. Sometimes the references to past events are 
further veiled from the eyes of the uninitiated by the 
use of “ futurist ” language. We have to remember 
that much of this literature sprang up in epochs of 
persecution, when to circulate ideas at all was only 
12 


The Beasts Before the Throne 


13 


possible under a veil, or, as it were, in a code of sym¬ 
bol and mystical allusion. 

There is, however, an element of prediction and 
very confident prediction in the book, only, as in the 
Old Testament Prophets, it is general rather than 
specific, it reaches out to the ultimate effect of great 
fundamental spiritual principles rather than to pre¬ 
cise dates and programs of events. It is a predic¬ 
tion of spiritual achievement and consummation which 
is never to be too rigidly identified with the form or 
figure in which it is stated. 

The fourth chapter affords us a very good example. 
The writer in his ecstatic mood beholds a door opened 
in heaven and he is taken into the counsel of the 
Divine Spirit. He is shown the things that must come 
to pass. These inevitable and unescapable happen¬ 
ings he depicts for us, however, in highly symbolic and 
figurative language, which it is simply foolish to take 
literally. He shows us, with eloquent and dramatic 
force, the Throne of God in all its mystic glory of 
beauty and power, and before it, crouching in sub¬ 
mission and eloquent praise, four large beasts. “ And 
before the throne . . . four living creatures saying, 
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty ” 
(Rev. 4 : 6-8). 

I never expect to see anything exactly like that at 
some distant future date. To take that literally is to 
render it simply grotesque and to empty the passage of 
spiritual value and meaning. We must be equally 
careful, however, to be sure we have the right mean- 



14 


God's Better Thing 


ing—the author’s meaning—of the symbols. So 
many people will accept any plausible meaning—any 
interpretation that superficially fits the figure. For ex¬ 
ample, seeing a “ lion ” mentioned here, and know¬ 
ing that the lion is the symbol of Great Britain, such 
shallow interpreters would at once jump to the con¬ 
clusion that it is Imperial Britain to whom the writer 
is referring—quite oblivious of the fact that the writer 
could have known nothing of the future possibilities of 
the “ tight little island,” and of the further fact that 
this symbol of the lion had a totally different refer¬ 
ence, much more familiar to the world of that day. If 
somebody today wrote a pamphlet, obviously sym¬ 
bolic, making mystical references to a great “ bear,” 
we should have little difficulty in recognizing a refer¬ 
ence to Russia. Similarly, these creatures would cer¬ 
tainly recall certain great powers to the readers of that 
day. Remember, then, in dealing with this and similar 
literature, these two plain rules: (1) It is mostly 
symbolic matter that you are dealing with; (2) great 
care must be exercised in ariving at the meaning of 
the symbols, and only the most probable should be 
accepted, not necessarily the ones that fit in with some 
preconceived scheme of explanation. 

Now, by the time this book of Revelation was writ¬ 
ten the power of Imperial Rome was being turned 
definitely against Christianity and the little Christian 
communities scattered throughout the world. In the 
earlier books of the New Testament the view taken of 
Rome is quite a favorable one. Its officers and magis- 



The Beasts Before the Throne 


15 


trates rule in righteousness, and their justice and tolera¬ 
tion are viewed, and rightly, as clothing them with 
divine authority. Wherever good laws are impartially 
and justly administered they have such authority. The 
Acts of the Apostles leads us in great hope to the gates 
of Rome—shows us Christianity winning its way to 
the heart of the Empire—Paul appeals to Caesar, and 
does so with confidence—but he was doomed to bitter 
disappointment. 

Symbols of Tyranny and Oppression 

With the reign of Nero the toleration which the 
Empire had, like our own Empire, generally shown 
to its varied religions, broke down, as regards the 
Christian faith, and the fire of persecution, started so 
violently by Nero, spread slowly but surely from 
Rome to the provinces. From the position of pro¬ 
tector, the Roman power became changed for Chris¬ 
tians into a ravenous beast of prey—a gigantic eagle, 
tearing with reddened beak and claws at the vitals of 
the faith. The national symbol of the Empire be¬ 
came imbued with all its worst suggestions of cruelty 
and oppression. 

John in Patmos—an aged exile—anxious for the 
future of the Faith in the earth, is faced by this mon¬ 
ster of blood, this great beast sprawling over the earth 
and everywhere devouring the children of the Church. 
It is little wonder that his thoughts are led back over 
history to the previous tyrannies from which mankind, 
and especially his own race, had suffered. He thinks 



16 


Cod's Better Thing 


of Assyria, the terror of the North, with its national 
emblem, the lion. He recalls Egypt, the terror of the 
South, with its ancient symbol of the calf. 

The third creature, with the face of a man, is an 
obvious reference to the centaur of Greece, and is 
meant most probably to refer to the power of the 
Syro-Grecian Empire, and the cruel oppression of 
Antiochus the Great. 

Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome—there is epito¬ 
mized the history of civilization in those ancient times. 
Tyranny rising upon tyranny, monster succeeding 
monster. What hope was there amid such a wel¬ 
ter of blood and misery as human history pre¬ 
sented, for the triumph of the cause of Christ, 
and the peaceful will of God? That is the 
author’s problem. And his answer is simply thrilling, 
in the sublimity of its heroism and hope. These 
gigantic beasts are to be tamed. This lonely exile, in 
a perfect miracle of triumph over circumstances, rises 
to the inspired vision of the imperialisms of the world 
awed and submissive, bowing in adoration and wor¬ 
ship before the throne of God. Freed of their wild¬ 
ness and wickedness, illuminated in understanding, 
“ having eyes within and without, before and be¬ 
hind,” they bring their great strength to the service of 
the Divine Will. All the varied wealth and power 
of Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, all their vast 
but secular learning, all their treasures of gold and 
silver, all their skill of handicraft and labor, all their 
resources of mind and body, hitherto poured into the 



The Beasts Before the Throne 


17 


maw of the Beast, degraded to the service of lust 
and greed, these things shall all be redeemed for a 
higher purpose, they shall be brought under the au¬ 
thority of him who “ is a Spirit and must be wor¬ 
shiped in spirit and in truth.” 

The writer is, of course, using these ancient im¬ 
perialisms themselves symbolically. His vision is the 
vision of the human body dominated by the human 
soul in the power and authority of God. It is the 
beast—man—brought into utter subjection to God’s 
spiritual purpose. It is the material element in civili¬ 
zation turned to its right use for the honor and glory 
of God. 

Now, no one surely in our day can read this vision 
unmoved. The exile’s problem is our problem. I 
wonder if his faith is our faith? The vision reminds 
us that 

There is the Beast in Every Nation 

Why is it that in the twentieth century civilized 
powers, boasting humanitarian aims, mental culture, 
spiritual beliefs, still retain as their national emblems 
the figures of beasts—the lion, the bear, the eagle? 
They are, as some one has wittily described them, 
“ mangy beasts of prey, all of them.” There is 
something terribly symbolic in this fact. Are we 
not here at the root of the trouble? We are led by 
the beast. He is blazoned on our banners. In every 
difficulty it is to the beast we turn in the last extremity, 
as though he were some national god who alone can 



18 


Cod's Better Thing 


protect us. And again and again the beast proves 
insatiable. Like the monster of ancient legend, he 
devours the flower and fruit of our humanity. Once 
unleashed it is terribly difficult to control him. 

There was a beastlike side to our civilization before 
the war, but the war has given us a more terrible reve¬ 
lation still. I have need only to refer to a certain 
Royal Commission 1 and its simply appalling report, 
for you to be reminded at once of the beast that lurks 
beneath the pomp and circumstance of war. It has 
been stated that no less than twenty-five per cent, of 
our casualities were traceable to disease connected 
with immorality. If that was so with us, I fear it must 
have been worse with other nations. What little news 
we had from Germany told the same sad tale. The 
following is taken from a German paper of 1916: 

At a recent meeting of the Synod of Berlin, Doctor Weber, 
of Bahn, declared that conditions in the Rhine provinces were 
unspeakable. The criminal and moral contamination of the 
youth of both sexes was appalling. Other clergymen told the 
same story of their own districts. Special legislation was asked 
for. ** The Great War,** said one, “ 1 vhich it Ipas expected 
would revive the moral tone of the nation , had, to the horror 
of all, the exactly opposite effect.** 

But it is not merely on its uglier side that the beast 
in man takes captive the soul. There are beauties in 
every beast, there are powers resident in the creatureli- 
ness of man that are great and glorious. There is 

1 Upon Venereal Disease. 



The Beasts Before the Throne 


19 


the material ” element of our modern civilization, a 
power of invention and of the knowledge and manipu¬ 
lation of physical forces, that is the crown of the 
science of all bygone ages. Never was there a more 
wonderful century than the nineteenth, with its amaz¬ 
ing series of discoveries in physical science and in the 
domination of natural forces. 

But the material element in our civilization has run 
away with the soul. It has crushed and killed the 
spiritual aspiration of our time. And the beast is all 
the more terrible because he is so intelligent, because 
he is a human beast, “ having eyes within and 
without.” 

This domination of the science of our time by the 
destructive impulses of the beast has seldom been so 
forcibly depicted as by A. G. Gardiner, in a recent 
article called “The Great God, Gun,” which is a 
classic piece of writing. He describes the making of a 
new god by civilization—the god Gun—as it is made 
at Woolwich or at Essen. You see its vast temple 
where it first has its being, you see its mighty bulk 
dipped in scalding baths of acid and of metal. You 
find the whole earth ravaged for its sustenance from 
the prairies of the West to the Arctic regions of the 
North. You see the toiling hosts of its servants, rest¬ 
ing neither by day nor night. Servants of the body 
who dig and delve and lift and strain. Servants of 
the brain, who plan and investigate and experiment, 
and exhaust the utmost resources of science and learn¬ 
ing in the service of the new god. And at last the idol 



20 


God’s Better Thing 


is made, and stands forth beautiful and complete. 
And then the Great God, Gun, begins to devour. 
Into its greedy maw goes the wealth, the love, the 
hope, the purity, the happiness of men, and its only 
gifts in return are broken human bodies, shattered 
human homes, dismantled churches, scrap-heaps of 
ruin that once were the glories of civilization. It is a 
terrible but a needed warning. It points to the pri¬ 
mary and most hideous danger of our time—that man 
as an intelligent beast may overwhelm man as a spiri¬ 
tual being and a child of God. 

But if we are saddened and sickened by the horrors 
of our time, they are not worse than the author of this 
vision knew: 

On that hard pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell. 

Deep-seated weariness and lust 
Made human life a hell. 

Yet he hoped in Cod and looked to the day of 
triumph. He sees 

The Beast Harnessed to the Will of God 

There are some people who would shoot the beast 
and discard him forever. The ascetic soul in every 
age has tried to do this, but in vain. The beast is 
there by divine creation, and there for a purpose. He 
is there to challenge the soul, and to provide a means 
whereby the soul may develop through struggle. 

Not the destruction of creature powers, but their 



The Beasts Before the Throne 


21 


dedication—that is the divine program. We must 
not fall back from science—that way lies the morass 
of superstition. We must sanctify science. 

Christ’s prayer is insistent, “ Thy kingdom come 
on earth .” The beast is necessary then. He has his 
place before the throne of God. It is only there, how¬ 
ever, that he becomes of use. Everywhere else he 
spells ruin. Away from that divine control for spiri¬ 
tual ends he sinks at once into ferocious cruelty and 
blind destructiveness. 

All the splendid materialism of our wonderful age 
must be mastered for God. Nietzsche’s “ blonde 
beast ”—his superman, has arrived in the man of 
science. This superman will make the earth a sham¬ 
bles and send civilization toppling over the precipice 
of barbarism, unless he can be brought to kneel be¬ 
fore the Lord his Maker, and to say from his heart, 
“ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” 

Plain it is that unless man masters war, then war 
will exterminate man, and the mastery of war is simply 
the mastery of the beast. Whence come wars? 
Without a doubt from the qualities that characterize 
the “ beast 99 in men. Whilst I would not make an 
unfair criticism of men who carry vast responsibilities 
on their shoulders, I cannot avoid the conviction that 
the recent war, like all others, was greatly due to an 
obsolete spirit in the diplomatic circles of the world. 
To the spirit especially, that a nation or empire must 
necessarily aggrandize itself and be pugnaciously as¬ 
sertive of its right, if it is to hold its place in the world. 



22 


God's Better Thing 


You can see the eagle preening its feathers and grow¬ 
ing fierce of eye, the lion tossing its mane and stretch¬ 
ing its claws, the bear rearing for its deadly hug. And 
they do these things , not very consciously or purpose¬ 
fully , but more by force of habit , simply because they 
are not dominated by a finer spirit —the spirit that is 
determined to assume everywhere that the good of 
every nation is the best for each and all. 

And when we look nearer home, to internal affairs, 
it is the same problem that meets us; the problem of 
the control of the beast in man. Every class of so¬ 
ciety is open to the temptations of materialism, and 
the problem of reconciliation is first and foremost a 
problem of restraining and controlling the material 
desires of us all. Most urgently necessary is it for 
such restraint that there should be in us all a confident 
faith in the Soul and in Spiritual Values. We must 
believe with all our hearts that a Kingdom of Rea¬ 
son and Good-will and Brotherhood is possible to 
men. 

Let me urge that last fact more strongly. When 
the Christian idealist presents this glowing vision and 
beautiful ideal of the material world subjugated and 
organized for the spiritual purposes of God, he is con¬ 
stantly confronted by the unbelief, even of professing 
Christians, who shrug their shoulders in patient tolera¬ 
tion and dismiss the project as quite impracticable. 
“ There will always be war,” says one. “ There will 
always be poverty,” said another. “ There will al¬ 
ways be unemployment.” “ There will always be 



The Beasts Before the Throne 


23 


disease.” And the greatest obstacle in the path of 
the great vision is this “ little-faith ” attitude of other¬ 
wise good people. Yet we were confronted in the 
war with a perfect miracle of organization. Colossal 
transformations have occurred in every department of 
the nation’s life. Social reform has always been op¬ 
posed as far too expensive for the State, but when war 
arose the State could spend seven million pounds a 
dap. In view of such achievements is it not time for us 
to be more reverent to these sublime visions of “ what 
must be,” and therefore “ may be,” which appeal to 
us from the pages of the Holy Book? What is 
wanted is a nation that will say as one man, “ I can,” 
and it would be done. 

So nigh is grandeur to the dust. 

So near is God to man. 

When Duty whispers low, “ Thou must,** 

The Youth replies, “ I can.** 

The Era of Permanent Peace 

This consecration of the material element in life 
must begin with our individual selves, but it must be 
carried through to all national and international 
affairs. 

The place to begin is with one’s own life. The pull 
of the vast animal history that lies behind the making 
of us all, is very great. Every soul knows it. In 
every life there is the great war in miniature. It would 
never be in Europe if it were not first in human hearts, 
c 



24 


God's Better Thing 


Every individual surrender to materialism perpetuates 
the reign of war in the world. And how prone to it 
are even the best of us! What is the first thing even 
a Christian man does who gets on in the world? It 
is usually to increase his establishment and develop 
the material comfort and well-being of his family. 
How seldom he thinks first of the great spiritual pur¬ 
poses of life and consecrates the new resources to the 
crusade of right against wrong, or uses his new-found 
wealth to lift some other family out of a wretched 
hovel. 

The love of money is a very great and subtle root 
of evil, but money itself may be a mighty divine power 
of blessing. Do you know the “ Song of the Sover¬ 
eign ”? Here is one verse: 

Dug from the mountainside, washed in the glen. 

Servant am I, or the master of men. 

Steal me, I curse you; 

Earn me, I bless you; 

Grasp me and hoard me, a fiend shall possess you. 

Lie for me, die for me. 

Covet me, take me, 

Angel or devil, I am rvhat you ma\e me. 

Until the Christian people of the world show in 
their daily life of self-denial their mastery over the 
beast, the world will remain slow to enter into the new 
and better time. 

And how shall we who bear the Great Name come 
to a better way of life, except by a clearer vision and 
a more faithful apprehension of him who is here de- 



The Beasts Before the Throne 


25 


scribed as the Lamb of God? The victory in the 
earth lies not with the lion, or the eagle, or the centaur, 
or the bull. It lies with the Lamb, and with the 
“ Lamb slain.’* The spirit of self-denial for others* 
sake—that is the only spirit which mediating between 
individual and individual, and between nation and na¬ 
tion, can bring peace upon the earth, and the mastery 
of the Soul over the Beast. Christ in individual rela¬ 
tions, Christ in civic life, Christ in national politics, 
Christ in international relations! He only is our Hope 
and Peace. It is his name we must write on our 
statute-book, and his will that our diplomatists must 
work for. Why should we not see in the municipality 
and in the nation a Christ-party, whose aim it shall be 
to bring the British Lion, in all the glory of his might, 
kneeling to the throne of God, captive to the Son of 
man? 

So we come to the pertinent question, “ On which 
side are we? ” “ Do we believe in this vision, and 

are we living to make it come true? ’* “ Who rules in 
our life? ” “ Christ or the beast? ” We must not 

be misled by the refinement and intelligence of the 
beast. The devil is fondest of his disguise as an 
angel of light. The cloven hoof can always be de¬ 
tected, however. “ Whosoever would save his life 
shall lose it.” There is the brand of the beast. Self- 
preservation at all costs, even the cost of honor, purity, 
humanity, and truth. Such a beast may boast its 
“ kultur,” but beast it is still, and the end of its activi¬ 
ties is war—bloodshed and death. 




26 


God's Better Thing 


Let Christ rule—“ Whosoever will lose his life for 
My sake,” there is the brand of the Son of man—and 
see what will happen. The beasts shall kneel before 
the throne of God their Maker; and notice, they shall 
kneel there together. That great word shall come 
true at last which says: “ And the wolf shall lie down 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fat- 
ling together; and a little child shall lead them." 



Ill 


THE CHURCH AND THE SOCIAL 
PROBLEM 

Christ’s Call to Business Men 

There is an important passage in Saint Matthew’s 
Gospel (Matt. 9 : 16, 17) which calls attention to 
a much neglected element in the teaching of Jesus. 
“ And no man putteth a piece of undressed cloth 
upon an old garment; for that which should fill it up 
taketh from the garment, and a worse rent is made. 
Neither do men put new wine into old wine-skins; else 
the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins 
perish; but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins, 
and both are preserved.” 

It has become a commonplace of the modern inter¬ 
pretation to claim that the method of Jesus is purely 
spiritual; that he aims at redeeming society by chang¬ 
ing the total spirit of humanity and that he does this 
through individual conversion; that he is more inter¬ 
ested, therefore, in character than in environment, and 
in motives rather than in institutions. But this modern 
emphasis on the spiritual nature of Christ’s method 
arose in revolt against the extreme and very external 
ecclesiasticism of the Church in bygone days—against 
the tendency to identify religion with outward obser- 

27 


28 


Cod's Better Thing 


vances and creedal dogmas and Church institutions. 
Like most revolts, however, it has gone to the other 
extreme and come perilously near to reducing the 
beautiful Christian ethic to a pious sentiment that 
operates in a vacuum and consequently achieves 
nothing. 

We have forgotten the splendid balance and sane 
practicality of our Lord’s teaching. In these words 
he is explaining to the Pharisees that the new wine 
of the gospel is too strong for the old institutions. 
Fasting was a prominent custom in Jewish religious life, 
but the rapture of the kingdom of God was bound to 
burst it as new wine bursts an old skin. It became 
imperative, therefore, that a new custom should be 
formed if the precious wine were not to be spilled and 
lost. 


Inadequate Social Wine-skins 

It is my solemn and earnest contention that the 
Christian ethic of joy and beauty and love has become 
spilled and spoiled and lost for our day and genera¬ 
tion by our refusal to provide for it an adequate so¬ 
cial wine-skin or system. Consider how diffuse and 
aimless and largely ineffective are our church activi¬ 
ties! The wine ferments strongly enough—is good 
enough in itself. We still generate the “ right spirit,” 
but it flows forth into a system so full of rents and 
holes and resistances that its quality is immediately 
diminished and its power dissipated. And the rest¬ 
lessness in Christian souls engendered by that unhappy 



The Church and the Social Problem 


29 


condition is breaking the old institutions—is rending 
the old garments and wine-skins. It is only with a 
constant and pathetic struggle that we keep any pre¬ 
tense of shape or usefulness in them at all. Let us be 
warned of Christ ere it be too late. 

It is not as though this were an isolated passage of 
Christ’s teaching. Although we find him using the 
old institutions to the best of their provision, never¬ 
theless, it is obvious that he expects nothing less than 
a vast change in the system about him. All through 
the narrative you find Jesus believing that his gospel 
involves the sharpest challenge to the existing forms of 
society. He made a certain use of synagogue and 
temple, yet he knew them for institutions that would 
pass away. 

“ Neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem,” he 
declared to the woman of Samaria. Seated one day 
amid the temple buildings and looking round upon 
them he declared, “ Verily there shall not be left one 
stone upon another.” Is it by any means clear that 
he was thinking only of his resurrection when he said, 
“ I will destroy this temple, and in three days I will 
build it again ”? Was he not thinking also of the 
new worship that should supplant the old? 

One great conception of his we cannot escape, for 
it fills the New Testament—the “ end of the world.” 
How sadly we have misunderstood that phrase! We 
have taken it all too often to mean the end of the 
globe—the destruction of the earth. The Greek word 
for world should have saved us from such a blunder. 



30 


Cod's Better Thing 


Cosmos has regained in our time its old meaning of 
order or system. Saint Paul even uses it in certain 
phrases (Gal. 4 : 3) to describe the Mosaic code of 
religious observance. Perhaps the word “ epoch ” is 
as good a translation as any. In this sense of the 
word there are repeated “ ends of the world.” Hu¬ 
manity is bound to organize its life, and until it or¬ 
ganizes its “ world ” on Christian principles it can 
erect only “ insubstantial fabrics ” that must fall one 
by one till the kingdom of God brings the series to a 
triumphant close. The commercial interest is a use¬ 
ful one for punctuating this story of repeated failure. 
The epoch of slavery came to its end. The epoch of 
feudalism came to its end. The epoch of industrial 
competitive confusion is now approaching its end. 
Every " world 99 must end at last, till God’s world 
arrive. 

It was then the end of the “ present order of 
things,” the present “ system ” of society to which 
Jesus looked forward. The “ world,” friendship with 
which, the apostles assure us, is “ enmity to God,” is 
not the terrestrial one, whose order and beauty and 
provision are so beneficent to us, but the arrap of all 
those institutions of society which are organized in 
forgetfulness of Cod and have their foundations in 
human greed. 

To those institutions the apostles as followers of 
Christ became enemies. “ We must obey God rather 
than men,” cried Peter, and in that declaration he 
challenged the whole system of Jewish morality and 



The Church and the Social Problem 


31 


religion. What was the charge brought against Ste¬ 
phen, the first Christian martyr? Listen! “This 
man ceases not to speak words against this holy place 
and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus 
of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change 
the customs which Moses delivered unto us.” Stephen 
understood his Lord to require a new system. 

I turn a few more pages of the Acts of the Apos¬ 
tles and discover that Paul and Silas are dragged be¬ 
fore a tribunal for this reason, “ These that have 
turned the world upside down are come hither also.” 
Obviously they were men who would not compromise 
with the “ system ” of life about them. 

Forms Rent by the Spirit 

I call to mind the old institutions that were attacked 
by those first Christians. 

First of all there were the typical Jewish customs— 
fasting, circumcision, aloofness from Gentiles, obser¬ 
vance of the Jewish Sabbath. This conflict cost the 
pioneers of our faith many severe privations and great 
hatred. The Jews everywhere became their most vio¬ 
lent foes. But their attack upon the institutions of 
paganism cost them dearer still. 

They refused to offer incense on the altar to the 
emperor as divine. For this many suffered torture 
and death. Many of the first Christians refused to 
fight in the Roman armies. As a friend remarked to 
me recently, “ It is difficult to imagine Saint Paul 
enthusiastic over the extension of the Roman Empire 



32 


Cod's Better Thing 


and losing his passion for all souls in Roman 
patriotism.” 

The gladiatorial shows were ended at last by Chris¬ 
tian protests that cost a great deal to make. 

Slavery was undermined by the opposition offered to 
its spirit by the early Church. Many a Christian master 
freed his slaves at great financial loss, whilst thousands 
who retained their slaves learned to treat them as 
brothers in the Lord. Business for them was not one 
thing and religion another. 

With regard to the fact that the Christian Church 
did not end the institution of slavery more quickly, it 
is well to remember that there was no considerable or 
effective popular franchise in the Roman Empire. 
The Christians had no votes—no means of political 
pressure. Yet they accomplished wonders by the con¬ 
tinual protest of their convictions and their lives. 
Hon) much greater is your responsibility and mine in 
vien? of our possession of the franchise and our power 
of political action! 

All along the line, in spite of a true reverence for 
law, the brave pioneers of the kingdom of God recog¬ 
nized that a work °f destruction was inevitable. The 
new wine could not help corroding the old wine-skins. 
The Christians could not help calling for new 
“ institutions.” 

We move down to later history. In the Reforma¬ 
tion there was a fresh effervescence of the new wine of 
Christian liberty. 

Our spiritual fathers did not argue—as some today 



The Church and the Social Problem 


33 


would apparently do—that the “ new wine ” must do 
as best it can in the old wine-skin. New institutions 
sprang into being. New churches were formed which 
gave room and play to the newly revived Christian 
spirit. Was that movement wrong? 

I take the verdict of Mr. H. W. Nevinson in his 
history of “ The Growth of Freedom.” He says: 

We may say that as a rule wherever the sacerdotal side of 
Christianity has stood in the ascendant and the priesthood has 
insisted on ritual, the Church has strengthened the predomi¬ 
nance of authority whether in mental or political life. Liberty 
on the other hand has advanced, provided that the personal 
relations of the soul toward religion have been regarded as of 
the highest value for spiritual life. 

The new institutions preserved and furthered the new 
spirit. Without their aid to expression it would have 
been spilled and lost. 

Modern Institutions Alien to Christ 

If, then, this has been the course of the best Chris¬ 
tian history and of apostolic example, must we not 
agree that Christ is equally the foe of all modern in¬ 
stitutions that are alien to his spirit? 

He is the foe of that great and persistent institu¬ 
tion of the world system, war. Of that we are now all 
convinced. 

What then shall we say of commerce? 

After a long and varied experience in the endeavor 
to win men of the world for Christ and the Church, 
I declare unhesitatingly that one of the most frequent 



34 


God's Better Thing 


objections they raise to such a step is, the difficulty 
they have in reconciling their business life with a true 
obedience to Christ. 

Repeatedly I have found men refusing to become 
church-members because, so they declare, they are 
not prepared to risk the economic security of them¬ 
selves and their families by a loyal adherence to the 
Christian temper and to Christian principles in business. 

I appeal to you business men. Is it so or not? In 
a searching little book, “ As Tommy Sees Us,” by 
the Rev. A. H. Gray, there is a whole chapter de¬ 
voted to this problem. Five officers give to the author 
as their solemn verdict on the ordinary practises of the 
commercial world that one cannot be in business and 
be strictly a Christian. Have these men of the world 
more sensitive consciences concerning Christ’s de¬ 
mands than the business men of our churches? Here 
is a challenge indeed to you business men who make 
a Christian profession. 

Consider briefly two elements in the Christian ethic. 
The Second Commandment Jesus tells us is to “ Love 
one’s neighbor as oneself.” Is that possible in a com¬ 
petitive system of commerce? Is it feasible in a system 
where a commercial traveler simply has to get down 
the street quicker than his rival and capture as much 
as possible of the trade and leave as little as possible 
for the other man? Do we not all know how jealously 
traders watch each other? How the big trusts knock 
out without compunction or compensation the little 
concerns? 



The Church and the Social Problem 


35 


Or take the great Christian injunction to humility 
and meekness of spirit. Does that pay in business? 
Is it true or false that trade flows in the channels of 
self-advertisement, self-assertion, pride, and display? 
Does not the situation force men to fight for their own 
hand, to assert their own rights and prefer their own 
interest above that of others? 

The attempt then to answer the simple question, 
“ Am I obeying Christ? ” forces the Christian to con¬ 
sider the system under which the world calls him to 
live and work. How can any of us claim to be really 
obeying him if we are acquiescing in, or bolstering up, 
or by indifference failing to alter a system which places 
upon human nature so unnatural a strain of temptation 
to selfishness, greed, and knavery? 

Alternatives of the Loyal Soul 

Is it not plain that only one of two courses lies open 
to the soul that would be loyal to Christ? 

1. We may break personally, and at whatever cost 
to ourselves and loved ones, with all that is immoral 
and cruel in commercial practises. If we are going to 
be strictly loyal to Christ in this way, we must break 
not only with unjust practises, but with hard and un¬ 
wind ones too. 

There are business men who pride themselves on 
their “ justice,” but who are more stony-hearted to 
the appeals of pity than many a pagan. The God of 
Efficiency is a very hard god to serve, and the service 
hardens the heart of the worshiper. 



36 


Cod's Better Thing 


Well, the Christian will remember the law of love. 
He will remember the beatitude of mercy. He will, 
therefore, refuse to compete with others for a liveli¬ 
hood. He will refuse to gain by another’s loss. The 
removal of his competition, or at least the blunting of 
its edge, may save another life from disaster. What 
is his duty as a Christian? Must he not withhold 
himself from injuring his neighbor? 

Here then is one line of action. Some men have 
taken it and withdrawn from the struggle and have 
gone under for Christ’s sake. Others only approxi¬ 
mate to its perfect fulfilment by reducing their compe¬ 
tition to the margin of a bare livelihood, and for 
Christ’s sake they endure a lifetime of anxiety and 
financial worry. 

All honor to these brave souls. They are in the true 
apostolic succession indeed. Yet may there not be 
another way? 

2. The other alternative, and the one I would press, 
is to recognize frankly that We are all enmeshed in a 
World system of long and stubborn growth , and that 
mere individual attack upon it is bad strategy. We 
must unite in the name of Christ to attack and alter 
drastically the world-system of our time. Christ’s 
call is to a church. He meant his church to be the 
collective resource and succor of the individual. 
Christian people must secure as speedily as possible 
unanimity of thought and action, and the simplest 
immediate focus of such unity is the obvious immorality 
of the World's Way of life . 



The Church and the Social Problem 


37 


After all, our sin, our disloyalty to Christ, lies not 
so much in the things we do under the system’s pres¬ 
sure. Why! we do them often from the noblest 
motives, such as love of one’s family. Our sin lies 
chiefly in our mental acquiescence in the system, our 
spiritual homage to mammon. This system, so evil 
in its essential principle of opposing men to each other 
instead of uniting them, is so familiar to us all that 
many Christian people even are still blind to its 
iniquity. They are blinded indeed by the “ God of 
this world.” The immediate and first great step to the 
church’s recovery of the kingdom of God is a united 
mental break with the world-system. Let it be known 
once more in the earth that Christian men of business, 
profession, or trade, are enemies of the world, and 
are determined to bring the world to an end that God’s 
kingdom may arise. 

So long as the church clings to the old wine-skins 
her guilt remains. Let her reach forth the hand of 
faith for the new wine-skins and she shall live by her 
faith. 

Vantage and Responsibility 

We must lift our responsibility for this matter to¬ 
gether, and so I plead that our Christian business men 
should get together and pool their brains upon this 
urgent problem of how they can obey Christ in 
commerce. 

Some of my friends have taken me to task for ap¬ 
pealing to men of the classes and to employers to take 



38 


Cod's Better Thing 


this step. They tel! me, “ You are not sincere,” that 
“ you have too much to lose ”—that I am wasting my 
time and breath. But I do not believe them. I be¬ 
lieve, on the contrary, that you business men are the 
only men who can solve the problem. I believe that 
in many of your hearts there are great wistful yearn¬ 
ings to pull the life of us all square with the demands 
of our Divine Master, that you aspire to live and die 
as not merely successful men of commerce, but much 
more—as true servants of Jesus Christ, master-build¬ 
ers of his kingdom. Well, what will you do? 

Walter Rauschenbusch points out in one of his 
books that again and again stubborn systems of evil 
have only been broken by some one who knew the 
system from the inside and understood it from A to Z, 
with its weak and strong points. It was Paul the 
Pharisee who broke Pharisaism; it was Luther the 
monk who broke monasticism; it was Count Mirabeau 
the aristocrat who did so much for the French Revolu¬ 
tion; it is Count Tolstoy the ex-officer who will yet 
prove the conqueror of militarism; it was John B. 
Gough the ex-drunkard who did most for the over¬ 
throw of alcoholism. Similarly it is to you men who 
work the present system , whose hands are on its main 
levers , who occupy its strong places —it is to you that 
in the name of him you worship I make this appeal. 
Come out on the Lord’s side as foes of the world 
system! Pool your ideas and energies for its over¬ 
throw and the establishment of a true reign of Christ! 
Nothing less is your duty. 



The Church and the Social Problem 


39 


To wait and wait till every soul is spiritually evan¬ 
gelized and convinced and abstractly perfect before 
you attack and attempt to change the system is to 
ignore the lessons of history, the plain challenge of 
these words of Christ, and the psychology of the 
human soul. Man progresses not by idea alone , but 
by idea and institution 1 voting to and /ro, in and out , 
in alternate reaction . Man is never abstractly perfect, 
but always in conjunction with some environment. 
He has a body as well as a soul. If a changed heart 
will change the rvorld , when are you going to begin? 
The changed heart yearns toward the changed city. 

The Call to Youth 

This matter is hard for some, especially for the 
older men who are so burdened with the pressures and 
the responsibilities this present system has heaped upon 
them. We cannot expect a great deal from men who 
have strength only just to carry on. But the young 
people! It is their problem especially. Many of 
them fought for a new world; it is theirs yet to make. 
It will take all their heroism and test all their wits. 
It may mean a fight—a great constitutional struggle. 
But the campaign is surely going through. Shall we 
not join in it and so fulfil our debt to Christ? Here is 
the real issue for us at last! Christ asks for new wine¬ 
skins. He calls for new institutions. Shall we not 
provide them, making common cause to build a new 
system? 

D 



40 


God's Better Thing 


Trumpeter, sound for the splendor of God, 
Sound the music whose name is law. 

Whose service is perfect freedom still. 

The Order august that rules the stars! 

Bid the anarchs of night withdraw! 

Too long the destroyers have worked their will. 
Sound for the last—the last of wars! 

Sound for the heights our fathers trod 
When truth was truth, and love was love. 

With a hell beneath and a heaven above. 
Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us 
On to the City of God. 


Note. The reader may like to know that partly as a result of the 
above appeal there has come into being a business men’s movement, “ The 
National Movement Towards a Christian Order of Industry and Com¬ 
merce.” Particulars can be obtained from the secretary, Mr. Archibald 
Ramage, at the offices of the Movement, 24 Great Russell Street, London, 
England. 





IV 


THE TWO INTERNATIONALS 

The Peoples Must Unite 

There is a legend of India which tells the story of 
how the quails successfully escaped the snare of a 
clever fowler. So many flocks of quails had suffered 
from his unwelcome attentions that at last a confer¬ 
ence of quails was held to consider what could be 
done. As a result, it was decided that when next the 
fowler’s net was flung over a flock of the birds, each 
quail should promptly thrust its head through the 
mesh above it and spread its wings instantly in flight. 
The result can be imagined. The birds, so helpless 
separately, by their united strength snatched the net 
from the fowler’s hand and flew away with it, leaving 
it at their leisure where it would never again be found 
by its owner. A moral for the present situation is not 
far to seek. Mars, the demon fowler of the human 
flock, flung his black net of war over the peoples of 
Europe, snaring them to their destruction and death. 
If the peoples wish for final and not temporary de¬ 
liverance they must unite. Nothing is more certain 
than that each people was a very unwilling victim of 
the war-god. None of them wanted this appalling 
bloodshed, this atrocious crime against humanity, yet 

41 


42 


God's Better Thing 


all were plagued with it and seemingly helpless to 
stay it. Paradoxical as the position was, it was, of 
course, no new one. It has always been so. War 
has always been made by the few and suffered by the 
many. And for the simple reason that the many do 
not realize their united strength. The few divide the 
many and hurl them at each other in a supposed an¬ 
tagonism of interests. Just so long as that operation 
is possible, so long will war distress the world. No 
question, therefore, is so urgent as the problem of how 
to give to the many cohesive strength and that patience 
with each other in which alone unity can become 
stable. What power can render the many so invin¬ 
cibly united that the few shall in future intrigue and 
misrepresent in vain? 

The time is overripe for the asking and the answer¬ 
ing of that question. The peoples of Europe have had 
a terrible lesson. They have just enough reserve 
strength now to profit by it. Tomorrow, with that 
reserve strength used up, they will not be able to profit 
by their lesson. Now is the day of salvation. The 
question is one then of the utmost urgency—an 
urgency that language cannot express. 

The answer of Socialism to the question we have 
asked has been sound in principle. “ The peoples 
must unite.” An International must be formed which 
will insure simultaneous and united action of the prole¬ 
tariats of the world against the forces that make for 
war. It was with this view that the universal strike 
was planned, and worked for before the recent strug- 



The Trvo Internationals 


43 


gle began. Its abject failure in 1914 may well have 
sent its gallant champion, Keir Hardie, to his grave 
with a broken heart. Since then there have been spas¬ 
modic efforts to revive the international mind of Labor. 
With deep respect one acknowledges that Labor has 
been perhaps more consistent in this aim than any other 
body. Yet it has been a house divided against itself. 
The Stockholm Conference proposal failed chiefly 
because the British working classes did not desire it. 
The failure of the Socialist International is no whit 
less tragic or complete than is the failure of the or¬ 
ganized Christianity of the belligerent peoples. 

Now, in view of the colossal sacrifices extorted by 
this war, and the appalling agony it represents, it is 
difficult to imagine folk of any class or opinion object¬ 
ing to the universal strike of Labor if it could be uni¬ 
versal and could prevent such a tragedy. Because it 
has failed once is no reason why it should fail again. 
The Church, for example, might very well say to 
Labor, “ For God’s sake succeed if you can.” 
Neither, however, can one imagine Labor objecting if 
the Church would say, “ There is an International 
that has not yet been seriously used or given the ex¬ 
ternal force that it really inwardly possesses, namely, 
‘ The Christian International! ’ ” If Labor is truly 
alive to the meaning and urgency of the present situa¬ 
tion, it will say to the Church in its turn, ” For God’s 
sake succeed if you can.” Between these two at¬ 
tempts to realize an effective International there 
should be no antagonism. They aim at the same great 



44 


God's Better Thing 


goal. If they show jealousy of each other’s prestige 
they thereby confess themselves not yet worthy of their 
sacred aim. 

May it not be hoped that since both Church and 
Labor share in common the humiliation of dismal fail¬ 
ure they may discover a new mutual sympathy, or at 
least make a new attempt to understand each other? 
If they could become one in repentance they might 
well become one in renewed faith and effort. With 
that end in view the writer wishes to point out cer¬ 
tain reasons of a very fundamental nature which sug¬ 
gest the absolute need for a Christian International to 
supplement the Socialistic effort. 

Faults of the Socialist International 

The sanction of the Socialist International is frankly 
and solely human and secularist. This is true even 
though many of its supporters have strong religious 
sympathies. The appeal of Socialism is to the com¬ 
mon interest, mainly material, of the proletariats of all 
lands. In the first place, however, this common in¬ 
terest is by no means very apparent in a largely unso¬ 
cialized civilization riven by competitive industry and 
divided by tariff walls. In the second place, the ap¬ 
peal is one that develops rather than restrains the self- 
interest of the various democracies. 

The positive dynamic of the Socialistic Interna¬ 
tional, being the material self-interest of the democ¬ 
racy, leaves the mind of the people dangerously open 
to other appeals to self-interest, such, for instance, as 



The Ttvo Internationals 


45 


the briberies of imperialism or the fears of alien domi¬ 
nation. the negative dynamic of the democratic 
movement lies in the agony of the present strife. 
When the people suffer enough, we are told, they will 
learn this lesson. But apparently the present agony 
must deepen into bloody revolution before the pres¬ 
sure on the people will be adequate to change their 
mind. Yet this also is a vain hope of betterment, for 
by the time that point of desperation is reached the 
chaos of human affairs will be so profound and com¬ 
plete that so far from the people being able to face 
the problems of reconstruction their general cry is 
far more like to be, Sauve qui peut! What greater 
reason is there to believe that the masses of Europe 
will learn the lesson of their travail without clear 
leadership and strong organization any more than did 
the masses of the old Roman empire? 

If then there is an International that can unite the 
people it must not wait for revolution, for it will then 
be too late. 

If only the Great War could have been settled by 
some great popular movement on an international 
scale, the result would have been simply invaluable as 
a precedent for solving future international disputes 
and also internal problems peaceably. 

The danger to democracy from the Government- 
made peace ought not to be overlooked. The Euro¬ 
pean governments are still tainted by secret diplomacy. 
The poison of imperialism still lurks in their blood. 
The result of their work has been to penalize the van- 



46 


God's Better Thing 


quished and to compensate allies, with the conse¬ 
quence, not that the real criminals are punished, but 
that the peoples are being made to suffer further losses 
—losses which will strain what little international sen¬ 
timent has survived the war, to the breaking-point. 

It is true that President Wilson’s policy was mag¬ 
nificently set against any such fatal issue of Euro¬ 
pean diplomacy, but the success of his policy was 
dependent entirely upon the genuine conversion of 
European statesmanship to democratic principle, which 
in its turn depended on democratic control of foreign 
policy. This unhappily was not forthcoming. 

It is just here that we arrive at the crux of the whole 
question, and the supreme limitation of the Socialist 
International. The supreme obstacle at this stage is 
the “ temper ” of democracy itself in every country. 
What is Labor’s resource in view of the spirit of hate 
and vengeance which has seized upon vast masses of 
the belligerent peoples? For example, one can cite 
the violent anti-German attitude of the Seamen’s 
Union, the outcry for a monster indemnity raised by 
the British, and the extreme bitterness of feeling 
amongst the Belgians and French—a feeling with 
which we can all deeply sympathize even while we 
realize how seriously it complicates the task of recon¬ 
struction. 

To what, in face of such a feeling, can a purely 
humanist International appeal? Can it appeal to 
common humanity? But it is just that which has been 
so grossly violated and denied. The common human- 



The Two Internationals 


47 


ity is not there to appeal to. Here is the serious limi¬ 
tation of the sanction of Socialism. To urge men to 
a friendly attitude toward each other simply because 
they are men demands at least that they shall be at¬ 
tracted to each other and mutually likeable. It is 
easy enough to find them likeable until they wrong 
you. Then comes the rub, the test, and the collapse. 
Up to that point the Socialist International works, be¬ 
yond it there is grave need for its reenforcement. In 
other words the Socialist International can succeed 
where there is already a common sentiment of friendli¬ 
ness—it cannot create that sentiment or restore it where 
it has been destroyed. The only remedy for the situa¬ 
tion lies, then, obviously in a sanction which is inde¬ 
pendent of the human situation, and which comes down 
upon it from higher considerations altogether. In 
other words, the main requirement is a superhuman 
or divine sanction insisting upon the magnanimous for¬ 
giveness of foes, and able to provide the moral courage 
necessary to such self-conquest. 

The Divine Sanction of Solidarity 

That sanction is the peculiar possession and gift of 
genuine Christianity. Only half-realized and but 
poorly applied by the churches, it is nevertheless the 
only solvent of the present situation. 

The first principle of European reconstruction, as 
we may call it, has been given classic utterance by 
Nurse Edith Cavell who certainly had some claim to 
indulge in vengeful feeling, but who, just before her 



48 


Cod’s Better Thing 


death, uttered what is easily the greatest saying of the 
war. Would that all the world might heed these 
words! “Standing as I do, in view of God and 
eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough; there 
must be no bitterness or hate in my heart against any 
one.” The power that made Edith Cavell able to 
say that is the only power that can remake Europe. It 
is the power of religion. “To err is human, to for¬ 
give divine.” 

The simple glaring need of the situation is then that 
there should arise in every nation a body determined to 
assert the divine sanction for human solidarity, and 
summoning the nations to obey that Spirit which is 
most fully honored by those who forgive most and 
who seek least for themselves. Now such a body 
exists. “ There is one body.” There is the Holy 
Church Universal. In spite of the differences that so 
deeply divide the various branches of the Christian 
Church there is a mighty common foundation of sim¬ 
ple loyalty to the Spirit of Christ. This common 
Divinity is the natural court of appeal for broken 
humanity. 

The Christian International has not only the su¬ 
preme advantage of a superhuman sanction and re¬ 
source, it has a wider human basis than that of Labor. 
It can link the classes as well as the masses together, 
and it can reach out beyond civilization to the back¬ 
ward races of mankind. Moreover, it can be feared 
by none, for its appeal is not to arms but only to the 
Cross on which the world’s Redeemer died for all. 



The Two Internationals 


49 


Truly presented, its appeal is irresistible by conscience. 
As men hope for God s forgiveness, so must they for¬ 
give each other. Let that sanction in its purity be as¬ 
serted in a truly international manner and with a grand 
simultaneity, and it cannot fail. Let the churches 
rally to their own league. Form the Christian Inter¬ 
national. State boldly, and as solemnly as possible, 
the Christian sanction for human fellowship, and 
pledge the churches of all lands against breaking it. 
The churches in this way would be doing more for the 
League of Nations than by simply blessing the merely 
political effort hitherto represented by that phrase. 
They would be providing the spiritual cement for the 
League of Nations. 

Who could antagonize such an effort? What is 
there to fear from it ? A common profession of Chris¬ 
tian faith cuts across all political parties and class dis¬ 
tinctions and social suspicions. Let but the Roman, 
Greek, Anglican, and Protestant churches utter the 
one great catholic word of reconciliation with one 
voice and at one time, and the peoples will listen even 
if governments are deaf. 

Are the churches so bankrupt of the reconciling 
Spirit of their Divine Head that they cannot achieve 
this? Shall the Church which has reconciled Jew and 
Gentile, master and slave, Roman and Barbarian, fail 
with the Britisher and the German, the American and 
the Turk? If the churches can do it, dare they leave 
it undone? 



V 


THE CHOICE OF DEMOCRACY 

The scene in the Gospels in which Barabbas is de¬ 
liberately chosen by the multitude in place of Jesus 
is a dramatic and terrible one, symbolic as it is of that 
repeated false choice of the multitude which has meant 
the destruction of human life and hope age by age. 
Barabbas is an interesting personality, and we know 
more of him than appears at first sight. His name, 
meaning as it does, Son of the father , or rabbi , be¬ 
speaks an origin for him in the well-conducted home of 
one of Israel’s teachers. 

He belonged to the aristocracy of the Jews, and 
had been reared in the fierce patriotism of his race. 
Barabbas, doubtless, came to his youth with a pas¬ 
sionate indignation at the subjection of Israel to the 
Roman power. No wonder then that we read of him 
as one who “ made insurrection,” and as being “ cast 
into prison for certain sedition made in the city.” In 
all probability he belonged to the Zealots, the Home 
Rule party of Judea, men consumed with an implac¬ 
able hate of Roman rule. 

It appears, however, that this man who was reared 
in the manse, and espoused so fiercely the cause of 
his native land, suffered the degeneration that all too 
50 


The Choice of Democracy 


51 


frequently comes to the man who chooses the ways of 
violence. He is referred to as a robber and as one 
who had committed murder in his pursuit of sedition. 
One can see Barabbas changing from the high-hearted 
patriotic youth to the man of brutal practises, hardened 
by the desperate life that Rome forced upon those 
who dared to rebel against her. This was the man 
whom Pilate ranged beside Jesus for the multitude’s 
choice. It is not difficult to imagine how the pic¬ 
turesque personality of the proud and undaunted 
rebel would appeal to the racial pride of the crowd 
and how unattractive in contrast Jesus must have ap¬ 
peared, fresh from the scourging, crowned with thorns, 
smeared already with blood, already a victim for sac¬ 
rifice. “ He was despised and rejected of men, and 
there was no beauty that we should desire him.” 

There they stood, the Man of War and the Man 
of Peace, and the multitude chose the Man of War. 

The Symbol 

What a symbol of the world’s story! Mankind 
demands a leader. It loves a lord. The energies of 
the multitude surge hither and thither seeking coordi¬ 
nation and purpose. Let a man profess to meet that 
need, with sufficient assurance and self-confidence, and 
it is not difficult for him to dominate the crowd. Such 
a need is real, its fulfilment a just and noble service, 
and doubtless many a king has been indeed the Konig , 
the Man Who Can, as Carlyle termed him. But his¬ 
tory shows that the balance lies to the debit rather than 



52 


God’s Better Thing 


the credit of heroes, leaders, and kings. Their per¬ 
sonal ambitions and preferences have again and again 
betrayed their commonweal. 

It was so in this case. The release of Barabbas 
was followed by a continual increase of rebellion in 
Israel, and at last Jerusalem was utterly destroyed by 
the eagles of Rome, and the multitude paid for their 
choice in the most frightful horrors of bloodshed and 
death. 

But this was not the first time that the multitude 
had made their choice. Alexander the Great, Sen¬ 
nacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Hannibal, and 
Caesar—each in turn had succeeded in leading great 
multitudes to destruction. Empires rose and fell and 
hosts of lives were engulfed in abysses of misery, 
shame, and ruin. The choice of the Robber-chief 
was ingrained in the multitude. 

And subsequent history presents the same gross 
folly. Recall the deadly character of Mahomet’s 
leadership, and how the tide of war rolled on for 
generations from the Arabian desert right up to the 
Pyrenees. 

Think of the fatal fascination Napoleon exerted 
over the millions of noble France. Here, indeed, we 
have a lesson, close to our own time. The First Re¬ 
public thought it had finished with tyranny. Revolu¬ 
tion had succeeded, the Goddess of Reason had taken 
the place of the gentle Christ, liberty, equality, fra¬ 
ternity had been achieved—when lo! there emerged 
from the crowd the picturesque robber-chief Bona- 



The Choice of Democracy) 


53 


parte and red war became at once and for long the 
fate of Europe. It is said that when Napoleon was 
being crowned he turned to a Frenchman and asked 
what he thought of the ceremony. The man replied 
with fine courage and home-thrust: “Very fine, sire! 
To complete the spectacle it needs only the presence 
of the half-million who died to put an end to all that.” 

The Lesson 

The lesson of that story is plain. No amount of 
abstract reasoning or aspiration can overcome the fatal 
propensity of the crowd to follow the superficially at¬ 
tractive and picturesque leader. Only another leader 
mil suffice. Induce in men a prior choice, a superior 
pledge, enrol them in a higher service, then only are 
they safe. 

Religion is the only solution of the right control, 
the self-control of the multitude. 

The choice of our own day leads to the same truth. 

The Great War has finally aroused the masses of 
Europe to the spectacle of their own folly—Democ¬ 
racy is at last thoroughly awake to the consequences 
of the “ choice of Barabbas,” which it has implicitly 
been making during the last one hundred years in 
leaving its affairs in the hands of tyrants and of oligar¬ 
chies. The government of Europe has been in the 
hands of men who have secretly pledged the multi¬ 
tudes to this and that adventure, recking nothing of 
the awful price the crowd of average humanity must 
pay. 



54 


God's Better Thing 


Our souls were surely revolted by the revelations 
made during the war of the secret bargaining of the 
Kaiser and the ex-Czar. Here were two men—Rob¬ 
ber-chiefs indeed—calmly and insolently disposing of 
the lives and affairs of millions of men, women, and 
children. It is intolerable! No wonder our wisest 
poet cried, “ What fools we mortals be! ” Are we 
cattle, to be pushed hither and thither for slaughter? 
Are we machines, to be worn out and scrapped in the 
cheap imperialist adventures of Robber Emperors? 
Are we the pawns of politicians and diplomats, or are 
we their masters? Is the people sovereign or is it 
slave? 

Here is a strange thing! All through history the 
Few have dominated the Many, and the Many have 
been miserable to make the Few happy and rich! Yet 
true strength has always been with the Many—weak¬ 
ness with the Few. If the Few have triumphed, so 
long and so constantly, it has been through the policy 
of “ divide and conquer ”—through sections of the 
Many lending their strength to support the tyrannies 
of the Few. What if the Many could be finally and 
irrefragably united? 

The United States of the World 

That is not impossible. Let the peoples of our 
modern world remake their choice. Let them make 
that choice which will make all nations one at once 
under One Spiritual King. 

In the thrilling story of William the Silent’s struggle 



The Choice of Democracy 


55 


for the liberty of the Netherlands there is an incident 
which is a perfect parable of what is happening in the 
world of today. The city of Leyden was hard beset 
by Spanish troops. Some miles of low-lying country, 
studded and partitioned by many dykes, lay between 
the city and the fleet of the Sea-Beggars, William’s 
fierce but gallant sailors. With magnificent pluck and 
ingenious purpose these men began to break down the 
dykes. One by one the barriers gave way, and more 
and more a mighty common sea filled the land, until 
at last the waves broke on the Spanish camp, and the 
sea, bearing on its bosom the fleet, carried victory and 
freedom to the city walls. 

As I see the world, it is a country divided by dykes, 
high and low, some good, some rotten, all divisive . 
But a great common impulse of humanity is surging 
against the partitions, striving to flow over them all, 
to burst all barriers and make all one. In that great 
day when the souls of all peoples flow together, soul in 
soul, and the authority of a common humanity breaks 
forever the tyranny of Robber-chiefs—in that day 
Liberty and Peace will become the everlasting pos¬ 
session of the peoples. 

Christ the Only Leader 

But only Christ can lead us to this. 

He is the Soul of Humanity. He is its true and 
only King. His very enemies wrote it in prophecy 
above his Cross. Even Pilate declared better than 
he knew, ** Behold! the Man! 

E 



56 


God’s Better Thing 


Let me make the assertion that the heart of every 
multitude is sound. It is the tendency of the crowd 
to take the line of least resistance—to sink to the 
lowest common denominator. Crowds are danger¬ 
ous to the well-being of humanity unless each individ¬ 
ual has made a wise determination beforehand. The 
heart of the multitude, however, is sound, because the 
individual is sound. 

Seek him on his own hearth and in his own home— 
he is the best fellow imaginable, anxious to live in har¬ 
mony with all men, simple in his tastes. The peasant 
and artisan of every people are thoroughly domesti¬ 
cated types, lovers of peace and haters of war. Their 
love of home is the very thing that makes them the 
easy prey of the war-monger. It is the one thing for 
which they will fight. All people fight in self-defense. 
It will never be possible again to get whole civilized 
nations to fight for empire. 

But the point I most desire to make is that the only 
way permanently to ensure the crowd against wrong 
choices—against being dazzled by this picturesque 
demagogue and that adventurer—is to secure that the 
hearts of men are antecedently pledged to Him who is 
supremely the Prince of Peace , as well as the Lord of 
Justice and of Truth. 

Democrary is moving, surely, but slowly, to sover¬ 
eign power. How will it use that power? Above all, 
how will it overcome its susceptibility to romantic and 
dangerous leadership, to shallow judgments and rash 
impulses? The multitude must be drilled individually 



The Choice of Democracy 


57 


in a fine loyalty to Him whose service alone is perfect 
freedom and perfect safety to the common good. 

Will not men and women realize the fatefulness of 
their choice in this hour? Every daily choice they 
make between kindness and greed, between chastity 
and impurity, between forgiveness and vengefulness, 
between justice and injustice, between peace and war, 
helps to determine the world-choice between Jesus 
and Barabbas. 

Every lesser leadership must be subjected to the cen¬ 
sorship of man’s true Overlord. His Cross in which 
he proved his equal love for all nations and every man, 
must become the rallying-center for the recently war¬ 
ring peoples. Let the democracies of all nations unite 
in the name of Him whose blood sprinkles them all. 

The day is big with fate! Multitudes, multitudes, 
in the valley of decision! And the day of the Lord 
is at hand. But the crowd will make its choice one 
by one. What is your choice? What is your 
neighbor’s? 



VI 


CHALLENGE OR COMPROMISE? 

“ Look! those men are Christians! ” 

That pregnant sentence stands beneath a picture 
drawn by a famous artist. Two men are passing down 
the main street of Damascus in the days of early Chris¬ 
tianity. They are objects of curiosity to the rest of 
the population, and one onlooker, with these startling 
words, seeks to draw his companion’s attention to 
them: “ Look! those men are Christians! ” 

What a distinctive thing it was to be a Christian in 
those days! The followers of Jesus were known as 
“ The people of the Way,” because they followed a 
mode of life so different from that of their neighbors. 
Today one would be at a loss to select from the 
crowd upon a modern street the men and women of 
Christ. In those days, when Christians were few, they 
startled the city with the daring originality of their 
ideas and life. In these days, when they are many 
and powerful, their conduct is scarcely distinguishable 
from that of the world. Why is it? 

Something may be said in extenuation. The work 
of the Christian church upon civilization has not been 
altogether in vain. There has been a very general 
approximation, in an external way, to the moral stand- 
58 


Challenge or Compromise? 


59 


ard demanded by Christianity. Society has become 
more respectable—its conventional morality has be¬ 
come nominally Christian. 

The Son of God Goes Forth to War 

But is this altogether satisfactory? No one looking 
at even the best types of modern society would dare 
to say, “ Behold! the kingdom of God! ” Would 
Jesus be content in any age with a merely conven¬ 
tional morality? Is not Christ always the moral 
pioneer? Those who follow him, therefore, are 
called to a perpetual struggle with “ things as they 
are ” in the interests of “ things as they ought to be.” 
Christ leads his troops to ever new adventure, to ever 
fresh attack, “ till he bring forth judgment to victory.” 
Can any one read Christ’s mountain sermon, his teach¬ 
ing about money or service or forgiveness, without 
feeling how sharply he challenges the life of our own 
day? If we really followed him, it would just as cer¬ 
tainly be said of us, “ These are they that turn the 
world upside down.” 

The history of the Christian centuries shows us in 
each age a band of pure discipleship engaged in death- 
grapple with some distinctive evil of the period. In 
one century, paganism; in another, priestcraft and 
superstition; in another, enthroned tyranny; in yet 
another, slavery; in a later age, gross industrial 
cruelty to children, or, later still, intemperance. In 
our own age what a clarion call there comes to chal¬ 
lenge war and vice and social iniquity! 



60 


Cod's Better Thing 


Can any one deny that beneath the conventional 
morality of the world, beneath its respectable lip- 
homage to religion, the spirit of the world is still alien 
to Christ, still grossly selfish, still as stony-hearted and 
as godless as when Jesus declared, “ The world 
hateth you because it hateth me”? It is still true to 
say, “ Friendship with the world is enmity against 
God.” How, then, can men and women who take 
Christ seriously avoid “ distinctiveness ” of ideas and 
behavior? Their life must be a challenge, or it is a 
most shameful compromise. 

The Uncompromising Christ 

The writer is not pleading for any artificial distinc¬ 
tiveness on the Christian’s part. We do not want a 
special garb, or a badge in the buttonhole, or a prig¬ 
gish aloofness from innocent amusement. We do not 
want a self-assertive righteousness which is censorious 
toward the world. “ Distinctiveness ” for its own sake 
is not good enough—it may easily become so Phari¬ 
saical as to defeat its own end. 

We want a spirit so truly Christlike that it puts to 
shame, by its own inherent and unforced purity, the 
lower standard of the world. We want a positive pas¬ 
sion for truth, for love, for justice, for mercy, as eager 
and as uncompromising as the passion of the Christ 
himself. 

Read the Gospels and see how utterly uncom¬ 
promising Jesus was. What use would he have for 
our modern discussions on “the limits of veracity”? 



Challenge or Compromise? 


61 


See him before Pilate, consider what arguments might 
be adduced for compromise with the mighty power of 
Rome, and then hear him say, “To this end have I 
come into the world, that I may bear witness to the 
truth.” 

Where shall our love end if Jesus leads us? Will 
it stop short of our business competitors? A clever 
modern writer has pointed out that it seems easy 
enough to say, “ Thou shalt not covet,” and to obey 
the command so long as it is our neighbor’s ass or wife 
—neither of which we want—that is forbidden. But 
suppose we read it thus, “ Thou shalt not covet thy 
neighbor s customers? ” What would become of the 
world of business then? Is Christ leading us to chal¬ 
lenge the very structure of modern commerce? 

One of the startling features of early Christianity 
was this power of boundless love. “ See how these 
Christians love one another,” cried the pagan world— 
startled at a capacity for friendship so sublime. When 
plague visited Alexandria in the second century, pagan 
victims were cast out into the streets, and none would 
minister to their needs save the despised Christians. 
These often took the plague into their own bodies in 
their work of love and pity for their suffering heathen 
neighbors. 

This is the kind of challenge we are to offer to the 
world, a love, a friendship, so startling in its purity and 
passion that they cannot but acknowledge that it must 
have some source deeper than human. “ Let your 
light so shine ,” says Jesus. Nothing forced, nothing 



62 


God's Better Thing 


artificial—a secret life with God shining forth spon¬ 
taneously, artlessly, naturally, and without restraint. 

The Peril of Compromise 

The young people of our churches, engaged in city 
offices, factories, warehouses, shops, will, to the writ¬ 
er’s knowledge, confess freely as to the real and subtle 
opposition offered by the world of our time to the 
spirit and ethics of Jesus. They know the peril of 
compromise. They know that the soul which does not 
maintain an eternal vigilance and an incessant fight 
for purity of thought, word, and deed, for strict hon¬ 
esty, for true kindness, finds itself drawn insidiously 
into shameful alliance with all manner of evil. Give 
the world an inch, and it will take an ell. The only 
way of safety is for the Christian to rally all his cour¬ 
age, to take the offensive and offer a real challenge to 
the life and thought around him. It is fatal for him 
to indulge an easy and timid agreement with all 
opinions—or to drift with the tide of popular beha¬ 
vior. 

The fault of so many Christians is this colorless¬ 
ness of character. Shakespeare has pilloried once for 
all, for our contempt, the soul that is willing to adopt 
anybody’s opinion at a moment’s notice, in his char¬ 
acter of Polonius in Hamlet. 

Says Hamlet : “ Do you see yonder cloud that’s 
almost in shape like a camel? ” 

Polonius: “ By the mass, *tis like a camel indeed.” 
Hamlet: “ Methinks it is like a weasel.” 



Challenge or Compromise? 


63 


POLONIUS: “ It is backed like a weasel.” 

HAMLET : “ Or like a whale.” 

PoLONIUS : “ Very like a whale.” 

People never respect such a man. Though they 
may humor him for their own ends, secretly he earns 
every man’s contempt. 

“ Have you a back-bone, or only a wish-bone? ” 
was the witty question once addressed to a man. It 
is one every Christian might well ponder in these days 
of easy opinions and few and feeble convictions. 

The hall-mark of the Christian today is just what 
it was for Peter and John of whom we read, “ And 
when they saw their boldness they took knowledge of 
them that they had been Tvith Jesus." Here is a truth 
for the Christian to consider indeed. Where is he 
most likely to realize the communion and presence of 
Christ—in the rear of the battle, where all is snug and 
safe, or in the van of the conflict where blows fall 
hottest? The secret of Christian courage may be well 
expressed by some words of Tennyson’s: 

He hears the sound of rolling drums 
Which beat to battle where he stands. 

Thy Face across his fancy comes 
And gives the battle to his hands. 


The Glory of Challenge 

It is said that all music is the result of strain, that 
it is essentially the resolution of discord into harmony. 
Similarly the music and beauty and glory of life are 



64 


Cocl’s Better Thing 


not found in acquiescence, in resignation, in permitting 
the soul to be dominated by things, in yielding char¬ 
acter to environment. The glory of life lies in the 
power of the soul to mold circumstances, to change 
environment, to challenge the conditions of life in the 
interests of the Ideal. And when this is done, in how¬ 
ever humble a corner of the great world, by however 
obscure a soul, the glory of God lightens upon it, in 
the form of blessing and progress even in spite of seem¬ 
ing failure and rebuff. 

Not long ago an evangelist revisited a northern town 
where he had previously conducted a very successful 
mission. He found, to his great sorrow, that the home 
which had entertained him then was plunged in grief. 
The only daughter, Annie, a bright attractive girl, who 
had been decisively influenced by his preaching, had 
just died. As he endeavored to comfort the sorrowing 
parents a young man called at the house who, upon 
being introduced to the evangelist, exclaimed eagerly: 

“ So you are the preacher-chap! ” 

“ Well,” replied the missioner, “ I suppose I am.” 

“ Good,” went on the other, “ I’ve been longing to 
meet you. There is something I particularly want you 
to know. I am the manager of the mills, and Annie 
Smith was my secretary. We were never very inti¬ 
mate, but I admired her more than I can tell. About 
a year ago, at the time of your mission, a change came 
over her. She seemed to grow somehow more serene 
in spirit and stronger in character. After noticing this 
for a while I ventured to ask her the reason of this 



Challenge or Compromise? 


65 


change, and she promised that one day she would tell 
me, if I were really in earnest. Then came her sudden 
illness, and I never saw her again.” 

Here the manager’s voice broke for a moment, then 
he continued: 

“ Afterward I had to go through her books and 
desk, and found various pens, pencils, note-books, and 
small things, most of which Annie’s friends amongst 
the girl clerks begged to have. I decided, however, 
to keep her fountain pen as my own memento of one 
who had influenced me so deeply. On opening the 
box in which she always kept it, I saw a paper gummed 
to the inside of the lid, with some words typed upon it. 
In a flash it came to me that here was the secret of 
Annie’s new life and strength of character. I care¬ 
fully steamed it off the box and put it in my wallet 
where I shall keep it always.” 

With these words he opened a leather case and, 
taking out a scrap of paper, he handed it to the mis- 
sioner, who with tear-laden eyes read the words aloud 
to his old friends: 

“ My Life shall be a Challenge , not a Compro¬ 
mise .” 

As the young manager reverently replaced the slip 
of paper in his wallet, he turned to the preacher and 
said: 

“ Now, sir, I want Annie’s motto to be mine. Will 
you teach me, as you taught her, the secret of a life 
like that? ” 

And as the missioner spoke to the youth of Christ 



66 


God’s Better Thing 


as a personal Saviour and a constant friend he could 
not help thinking what a glorious and divine reward 
for Annie Smith’s brave life of challenge was the 
consecration of this new warrior. 

The Hills of God 

Jesus uttered these solemn words, “If any man 
deny me before men, him will I deny before My 
Father in heaven.” That was no arbitrary threat on 
the part of Jesus. It was the statement of a natural 
consequence. If we are not honestly Christ’s, how 
can he claim us as such? And if we fail him in those 
critical hours and occasions, when evil issues its chal¬ 
lenge, how can we claim to be truly his? 

We hope one day to stand on “ the hills of God,” 
sharing in his perfect victory, but that hope will fade 
and die unless now we share his battle. 

W. T. Stead, the great journalist, once told the 
story of a man and his wife who were leaving a mis¬ 
sion hall whilst the congregation were singing that 
well-known hymn: 

Down in the valley or upon the mountain steep. 

Close beside my Saviour would my soul ever keep; 

He will lead me safely in the path that he has trod 
Up to where they gather on the hills of God. 

Said the wife to the man: 

“ What are the hills of God, Ned? ” 

The man looked thoughtful for a moment or two 
and then replied: 



Challenge or Compromise? 


67 


“ I Hardly know, but one of them must be Calvary." 

“ One of them must be Calvary.” Disciple of 
Christ! do not any longer deny the Lord whose love 
for you brought him to that first hill of God. If to 
follow him will lead you to a Gethsemane and Cal¬ 
vary of your own, do not falter. The Christian pil¬ 
grim does not abide at Calvary for ever. Let him 
prove faithful and, like his Lord, he will pass at last 
from height to height, “up to where they gather on 
the hills of God.” Those happier hills which know no 
rain of tears, no mist of sin, where the Cross becomes 
the Crown, and where those who have lived the life 
of never-ceasing challenge become “ more than con¬ 
querors.” 

“ Up to where they gather on the hills of God.” 
They? Who? 

“ Who are these that are arrayed in white robes, 
and whence came they? These are they that came 
out of great tribulation and have washed their robes 
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 

These are they who preferred the life of Challenge 
to that of Compromise. 



VII 


GOD’S BETTER THING 

The closing verse of the eleventh chapter of the 
Hebrews gives a most dramatic and startling turn to 
the thought of the chapter. It seems at first sight like 
a cruel anticlimax to a most promising and beautiful 
record. Here we have presented to us story after 
story of heroic faith and conduct—a long roll of honor 
of those who have fought “ the good fight ” victor¬ 
iously. Then suddenly, at the end of the record, we 
learn that faith’s supreme reward—its final ultimate 
achievement—is to be delayed. “ And these all . . . 
received not the promise. God having provided some 
better thing for us, that apart from us they should not 
be made perfect.” These champions of the holy war¬ 
fare cannot yet be perfected until those to whom the 
writer sends his letter are perfected too. There is to 
be a grand simultaneity about the final perfecting 
event, and for that simultaneity all must wait. 

Faith’s Delayed Reward 

It seems disappointing and something less than kind 
at first, but one sentence redeems the situation—“ God 
having foreseen some better thing .” So far from this 
delay being a calamity, it is truly a boon. The imme- 
68 


God's Better Thing 


69 


diate consummation of their victory is denied in order 
that when the great reward arrives it may be the Best 
indeed, and not merely a second best. God’s best 
gift to men is not possible as given to men, but only as 
given to Man. 

There is a perfection then, which the individual 
cannot know till it is also the portion of all others. 
This is a great formative truth with far-reaching conse¬ 
quences, and it explains many mysteries. 

It means in the first place that the individual can be 

Perfected Only In a Perfect Society 

These heroes had served with utter faithfulness. 
They had sacrificed all for “ the city which hath foun¬ 
dations, whose builder and maker is God.” Yet they 
could not reap the fulness of the promise without the 
rest of humanity. And it is not difficult to see why 
that was so. They sought a city. Their great goal 
was the perfect society. The promise which is re¬ 
ferred to again and again in this chapter, as though it 
were the summum bonum , the highest good of life, 
what is it? It is the “land of promise.” “They 
make it manifest that they are seeking after a country 
of their own, they desire a better country, that is a 
heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to 

be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a 
•. »* 
city. 

Take, for example, a story that has prominence in 
this chapter, the story of Moses. Moses loved pas¬ 
sionately the people he was instrumental in delivering 



70 


Cod's Better Thing 


from slavery. The goal of his life was the welfare of 
Israel to all succeeding generations, the establishment 
of his people in eternal well-being. The noblest 
prayer ever uttered by a patriot and a statesman was 
uttered by him. Here it is: “Oh! this people have 
sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. 
Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin— and if not , 
blot me, I pray thee , out of thy book which thou hast 
written .” 

Now, after a prayer like that, can you imagine 
Moses ever being satisfied with his own moral perfec¬ 
tion until his people were perfected too? The spirit 
of saviorhood was upon him and only God’s “ better 
thing ” could adequately reward his faith. No per¬ 
fection of happiness or character could ever truly be 
his unless one day his nation, the people for whom he 
lived and toiled, and their children’s children, should 
be found at last clothed in the perfection of the 
heavenly life. 

A Moral Necessity 

It is not, however, a question merely of desire on 
the part of God’s heroes of faith, but a matter of 
necessity. The full expression of character demands 
a suitable environing society. There is a perfection 
of sound, a quality which belongs to a note of music 
in its isolated individual condition. Do, re, mi, have 
each their individual value and beauty. But they 
have also a greater perfection, a finer quality, which 
is theirs only when you find them set in an orchestral 



God's Better Thing 


71 


piece, or sounded in the comprehensive oratorio. It 
is then you get the full cadence of the note in contrast 
with tones above and tones below. It takes the per¬ 
fect piece of music to reveal the perfect individual 
note. 

Awhile ago I was helping my little boy to put 
together a picture made of bricks. You know the 
kind of thing. As one looked at each brick and saw 
the section it represented, the dog’s head, the horse’s 
legs, the man’s face, each section had its own per¬ 
fection, but it gained fuller meaning and value, it was 
clothed in great beauty, as it was slipped into its 
appointed place, and it took every brick to make the 
complete picture. Go to the quarry and mark the 
newly hewn and chiseled stones. Each one has its 
value and individual beauty, but a grander beauty 
adorns it as it reaches its place in the great cathedral. 
“Ye are living stones,’’ says Saint Peter, “to be 
built up, a habitation of the Spirit of God.” 

Or think of a man’s hand. There is a perfection to 
it all its own. Severed from the body it has a fasci¬ 
nation for the artist and the physiologist. It is a won¬ 
der, a perfect creation. But its perfection in that con¬ 
dition is as nothing to the grander being it realizes 
when, joined to the body, it throbs and moves with 
the body’s common life and will. 

“Ye are one body, members one of another,” says 
Saint Paul. Think of the soldier and the army. 
There is his individual perfection. He has been thor¬ 
oughly trained and is the perfect finished article of the 
F 



72 


God’s Better Thing 


military schools. Yet his strength is but as weakness, 
his value as valueless, so long as he remains alone. 
Drop him into his place in the line, in the Army of 
the King, and he is tenfold the man, his perfection 
achieves the fulness of its promise. It is as Man that 
man will at last reach his best. “ These will not be 
made perfect apart from us,” “ God having provided 
some better thing.” 

Character Conditioned by Society 

The individual and society are mutually necessary 
to each other, and it is idle to attempt the perfection 
of the one without the other. Take away all indi¬ 
viduals, and there can be no society. Take away the 
rest of society, and the individual life does not merely 
fail of sufficient scope, it becomes impossible. The 
human infant could not live one day without a society 
of parental spirit protecting and nourishing its fragile 
life. 

The story of Robinson Crusoe is often supposed 
to be the story of a lonely man on an uninhabited 
island, but study the story carefully, and you will 
find that even that redoubtable hero could not get 
very far without the rest of the world. In the first 
place, but for society he would never have been there. 
In the second place, the wrecked ship gave him his 
rough stock-in-trade of tools and food, all products of 
society. An absolutely isolated human being has 
never yet been known; man is made to fulfil his being 
in the society of mankind. 



God's Better Thing 


73 


Perhaps the most convincing illustration of all to 
show that the most perfect character is conditioned by 
the society about it, is the story of our perfect Lord. 
We call the character of Jesus perfect because it 
so far outshines all other human nature. But, com¬ 
pared to the possibilities that lay open to Jesus, the 
character he rvas able to manifest must have seemed at 
times disappointing to himself. Think, for example, 
of that twenty-third chapter of Saint Matthew, and 
how the wickedness of the Pharisees compelled our 
Lord to fierce indignation. How the necessity for 
such a temper of mind must have grieved the gentle 
spirit of Jesus! Think of his scourging the money¬ 
changers from the Temple! 

Must we not believe that Jesus was deeply sad¬ 
dened by the need of such violent action being thrust 
upon him by the faulty society he found about him? 
Indeed, we have such expression of his grief: “Oh, 
faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? ” 
Read also that passionate wail of grief that closes 
Matthew, chapter twenty-three. Even our blessed 
Lord could not shine with unrestrained effulgence of 
unclouded love because of the sin of those about him. 
He certainly reacted perfectly to those about him, but 
again and again he had perforce to choose, for their 
good, the reaction of love’s righteous anger, instead of 
the reaction of love’s gentleness. 

If this is true of Jesus, how much more true it 
must be of you and me. Be man ever so perfect, then, 
much of his perfection must lie dormant and unex- 



74 


Cod's Better Thing 


pressed, or find inferior forms of expression till he 
finds the Perfect Environing Society. This truth 
flings powerful emphasis upon 

The Fellowship and Unity of Mankind 

There is no good in life that can be long retained 
by mere individualism, whether in art, in politics, or 
in religion; individualism, as an end in itself, is 
doomed. Christ spelt that doom. The Church is 
appointed to achieve it. Cooperation, fellowship, the 
League of Nations, the United States of the World, 
the Parliament of Man, the New Jerusalem, the City 
which God hath prepared, these are the true watch¬ 
words of the Christian era and consummation, they 
are the marrow of the gospel. The social gospel is 
the only gospel, for only in that does the individual 
gospel mature and realize itself. “ Apart from us— 
they will not be made perfect.” 

You cannot receive God’s greatest gift, his “ better 
thing,” in isolation from your kind. Knowing the 
nature he has given you and me, God has so arranged 
life that we must pull together, or fail of our consum¬ 
mated bliss and salvation. 

He might have made us simply perfect in ourselves, 
and rested content with that, as so many of us un¬ 
happily might be content with it, having no ministry, 
no usefulness, no vital interest in the saving and per¬ 
fecting of others. But that would have been to give 
us less than his best. We should have lost the supreme 
joy of life and being—fellowship. 



Cod's Better Thing 


75 


In spite of all our human selfishness and snobbish¬ 
ness, there are few of us who do not find in others the 
reason, value, dignity, delight, of our own life. The 
mother lives for her child, the father for his son, the 
friend for his friend, and loneliness is death in life. 

People have often thought of religion as just get¬ 
ting to heaven themselves, but the great question for 
the truly awakened heart is not merely, “ Shall I get 
there? ” but “ When I get there, will heaven’s society 
satisfy me? Shall I find there those who are dearer 
to me than my own life? ” Will those sacred loves 
which have come to our hearts from the Sacred Heart 
be disappointed or consummated? God’s answer is 
in this text. He gives us a picture of the generations 
of those who have won the great victory, waiting for 
us to catch them up, to reach the same high peak on 
which they stand, until step by step and shoulder by 
shoulder “ streams through the countless host.” 

Underlying this picture of one generation of heroes 
awaiting the ingathering of other generations, before 
entering into the final perfection of their own lives, 
there is the majestic necessity of Love. 

There is great and glorious meaning in that old 
story of the barbarian chieftain who inquired whether 
his ancestors were in hell or heaven, and being told 
“ in hell ” refused thereupon to be baptized, prefer¬ 
ring hell with his fathers rather than heaven without 
them. There you have a picture of Love’s deter¬ 
mination to achieve the perfect victory over sin. Is 
that love from God, or from man? 



76 


God's Better Thing 


Think of the generations linked together. Every 
father somebody’s son, every son somebody’s father, 
or brother, or friend. As the street song sings, 
“ Everybody’s loved by some one.” Therefore can 
one not be saved alone. Only in company with one’s 
fellows can one find the perfect character and its per¬ 
fect expression, and since one’s fellows are a different 
company for every soul, only in the total race , in its 
united and complete return to God, can adequate sal¬ 
vation come to any of us. The race through history, 
and over all the earth, is indissolubly one. Sin is the 
attempt to deny it. Goodness is its affirmation at all 
costs. " What God hath joined together let no man 
put asunder.” Humanity is no mere collection of frag¬ 
mentary individuals, it is one Great Heart, one Mighty 
Being. 

We belong to a race of which we have absolute 
need, and which has absolute need of us. This is 
why the Son of man came to seek and to save the 
lost—to save God’s holy sublime purpose, his better 
thing, from the failure with which sin and selfishness 
threaten it. 

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul 
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal; 

While he who walks in love may wander far. 

Yet God will bring him where the blessed are. 



VIII 


THE VISION OF THE IDEAL AND 
ITS COMFORT 

"And l saw ... And I John saw ... the Holy City ."— 
Rev . 21 : /, 2. 

It is worth while to notice how often there is re¬ 
peated in this remarkable book the phrase, “ And I 
saw.** It is to be found in the early verses of nearly 
every chapter, varied here and there by the kindred 
phrase, “ And I heard.” It is the refrain, the great 
chorus, of this book of Revelation. 

The book is a thrilling story of the unveiling of 
the spiritual purposes and methods of God, and the 
natural counterpart of that unveiling or revelation is 
the penetrating uplifted “ vision ” of the soul of John 
the Divine. 

I wonder whether we are capable of realizing the 
infinite comfort this privilege of vision was to John. 
Some of us who have ourselves tasted the bitterness 
of exile may be able to do so. For these are the 
visions of an exile. There on the wretched, barren 
little island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor, 
he was imprisoned by the all-surrounding sea. He is 
eating his heart out in anxiety for the great Cause 
he represents in the world, and for the churches of the 

77 


78 


Cod’s Better Thing 


mainland he loved so deeply! Do you know what 
it is to have a heart of burning zeal and to be help¬ 
less and useless? What infinite pathos of longing is 
echoed in the words, “ There shall be no more sea.” 
How often John must have looked across the cruel 
dividing waters and wished for the power to dry them 
up, that they might never separate loving hearts 
again. 

And doubtless it was upon the shore, as the distant 
volcanic glories of the mountains of Patmos mingled 
with the rays of the setting sun that the Great Vision 
came to him, bringing the Great Comfort. He saw 
as already accomplished the glorious Commonwealth 
of man and God. He saw the Mighty Son of God, 
who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the 
end of all Being. He saw the mighty host of the 
redeemed standing on the sea of glass mingled with 
fire, having the harps of God in their hands and sing¬ 
ing songs of victory. And as he saw, his heart grew 
strong within him to suffer and endure, and his soul 
grew sure to its inmost center of the Great Consum¬ 
mation that must crown all his toil and sorrow. 

God leads us by strange ways. As John fretted 
against the bars of his cage, how little he realized that 
out of his exile would come this Book of Vision 
which should nourish with faith and gird with strength 
the armies of the Lord through long distant ages of 
struggle and pain. He thought he was doing noth¬ 
ing, but because “ he sarp ,” thousands of other souls 
have “ seen,” and have been saved from the doom of 



The Vision of the I deal and Its Comfort 79 


that ancient word, “ Where there is no open vision the 
people perish.” 

We are all, however, in one deep sense, exiles. 
All of us are exiles spiritually—souls longing for a 
better country, for the heart of man has been so made 
by his Creator that it may not long rest in anything 
less than heaven and the very fulness of God’s 
presence. 

Let us think then, first, of 

The Call of the Vision 

It was this which first unsettled John. He had 
been a humble fisher on the Sea of Galilee when one 
day a Vision came to him and called, saying, “ Fol¬ 
low Me! ” That day he had seen “The man he 
ought to be,” and became filled with a divine discon¬ 
tent. The world was unsuited to his liking from that 
hour. He had left home and kindred following that 
Vision. He had dwelt with that Master-Light of all 
his seeing, and in that Light of the World had seen 
what the world might become; he had seen the Vision 
which troubles every soul sooner or later. Yes! 
every soul. Pope was right when he wrote, “ Man 
never is but always to be blessed.” What is this 
greater thing in the heart of man which leaves him 
restless and dissatisfied with every lesser thing and 
meaner achievement? Are there any of us who have 
not felt at some time or other this call of the ideal 
life and world? 

There is that in man which will never let him settle 



80 


God's Better Thing 


down for long. The status quo is always tending to 
be broken up, if not by the challenge of good then by 
the challenge of evil. The sea of humanity must ever 
be kept in motion, if not by the incoming, then by 
the ebb-tide. Consider how quickly the most pleasure- 
able conditions pall upon the active spirit of man. 
Even the noblest conditions, if devoid of aspiration 
and aim of improvement, begin to irritate and chafe 
the soul. The good, however good, must still be sur¬ 
rendered for a better and a better still. Even the 
sweet joys of human fellowship, the bright and satis¬ 
fying circle of home and dearest love, even these 
things, as soon as they become self-centered, directed 
not to some noble aim beyond themselves, but turned 
in upon themselves as all in all, even these things begin 
to grow ignoble, and something less than might be, 
and cease to satisfy the deepest cravings of the soul. 

If this is true of all souls soon or late, it is especially 
true of those that are cast in nobler vein than their 
fellows. These ever crave some greater thing to do 
and to become. Such a man, for example, was Wen¬ 
dell Phillips, the orator of the anti-slavery movement 
in America. As a young man and a brilliant rising 
lawyer, he was the darling of society, with a fine so¬ 
cial career before him. Glancing from his office 
window one October day, he saw the mob attacking 
brave Lloyd Garrison for his outspoken defense of 
liberty. Garrison was taken to prison for his own 
safety, but in his very hour of defeat he had passed 
on the call of the ideal to Wendell Phillips. The 



The Vision of the Ideal and Its Comfort 81 


brilliant lawyer, pursuing the ideal with dauntless 
courage, became for long an outcast of society, shar¬ 
ing Garrison’s fate of social obloquy in his passion to 
answer the call. It is not too much to say that the 
recent war came as an infinite relief to many souls 
whose love of adventure, whose onward-striving spirit, 
seemed able to find no scope in the all too paltry ways 
of peace, and the greatest problem of society, if the 
world is to be saved from war, is to provide a peace 
that shall never sink into mean ways of life, but shall 
become a “ moral equivalent of war ” in its passion 
for spiritual ideals. 

Yes, we are exiles, for it is ever the Better Country 
that we seek. Some there are who grow deaf to the 
call of the ideal, and waste their lives in ignoble false 
contentment. They drug their souls with the sweets 
of life. Yet are they happy? Not truly so. Beneath 
their seeming contentment there is often perceptible a 
profound irritation. Like the butterfly, they can never 
rest anywhere long. They flit from pleasure to plea¬ 
sure, and grow utterly weary, secretly, of the purpose¬ 
lessness of their life. They suffer from a kind of 
spiritual diabetes, growing hungrier and hungrier in 
soul, yet never nourished. For the soul can thrive only 
on the Bread of Heaven. 

Let us be honest with ourselves, and we shall feel 
in our souls the deep booming call of the ideal, the 
very voice of God himself, and though it may disturb 
the pleasant idleness in which we have chosen to waste 
our lives, in obeying its call we shall at once begin 



82 


God's Better Thing 


to discover around our restlessness his rest, and round 
our incompleteness his completeness. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow. 

Is our destined end or way. 

But to live that each tomorrow 
Finds us farther than today. 

Consider, then, 

The Comfort of the Vision 

If the Ideal, when it calls to us, makes us dissatis¬ 
fied with life as it is, if it calls us into ways of sacri¬ 
fice, perhaps of death, yet deeper than its divine dis¬ 
content is its great hallowing and shining promise. 
Let me use those two words, hallowing and promise, 
to focus the comfort of the vision. 

1 . The Vision of the Ideal means the hallowing of 
life. 

Our life is seen at once to be dignified by an ade¬ 
quate purpose, made sacred by a noble possibility. In¬ 
stead of being merely creatures with a present that palls, 
we become souls with a future that inspires. The stream 
of our life is not some miserable back-water, stag¬ 
nant with inaction, it is moving onward to the ocean. 
The mean little trickle on the hillside may well despise 
itself as of little moment in the world, but when it 
pours itself into the wider waters of the onward rush¬ 
ing river, as it bears on its bosom the burdens of com¬ 
merce and the argosies of love, as it swells in ever 
bigger volume, till it hears the thunder of the great 



The Vision of the I deal and Its Comfort 83 


sea of seas itself, then indeed it can say to itself, “ I 
am Somewhat.” 

Such is your life, if you have seen the Vision. You 
are no longer living to your paltry self. You are pour¬ 
ing yourself into the river of humanity’s life on your 
way to God. Your being is growing to the majesty 
and might of the Commonwealth of Man, the Family 
of God. Your life is part of God’s own movement, 
you are a temple of the Holy Ghost, hallowed, 
sacrosanct. 

In that thrilling chapter of heroes, the eleventh of 
Hebrews, the author has one pregnant phrase which 
graphically expresses this hallowing of human life 
that the Vision brings. He says: “ But now they 
desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: where¬ 
fore Cod is not ashamed to be called their Cod: for 
He hath prepared for them a city." It is the soul in 
which aspiration is dead or stagnant of which God 
grows ashamed. Only high and noble purpose gives 
dignity to his children. As Browning says, “ ’Tis 
not what man does which exalts him, but what man 
would do! ” 

The New Testament ever speaks of the Christian 
as one who is “ set apart,” that is, holy, “ called to be 
a saint,” in other words, hallowed by the upward call¬ 
ing in Christ Jesus, the glorious purpose that God in¬ 
spires in all who follow him. 

Let all your own ambitions be lost in that divine 
aim! Let the glory of the Vision burn up all the dross 
of selfishness! Let the great destiny to which God 



84 


Cod's Better Thing 


calls you in Christ make your life entirely holy. This 
is the hallowing of the Vision. 

2. The Vision of the Ideal brings the comfort of a 
sure Promise. 

Why is the Vision there? It is real enough. No 
one can dispute the intense reality and profound in¬ 
fluence of this vision of a better world. Why is it 
given? Why does the human mind register it so con¬ 
sistently and vividly? Is it to mock us with a beauty 
of life that lures only to destruction? Is it to entice 
us into action foredoomed to be fruitless? Surely 
not! Such a stultification of the most passionate and 
beautiful product of being is inconceivable. 

Can the Mind which projected so holy and glo¬ 
rious a conception upon the thoughts of men be other 
than itself beautiful, holy, genuine? There is no other 
adequate explanation of the Vision than that it is the 
gift of God, his own personal sacred promise of a 
New Heaven and Earth. “ I John saw the Holy 
City, the New Jerusalem, descending out of Heaven .” 
It is first a gift from above to the minds of men, and 
thence is it built by their blood and tears. 

Will you take the Vision as a promise? What 
God hath led the mind of man to image forth, this 
prophecy of a glorious free commonwealth of souls, 
shall he not perfect into performance? 

What power would be ours could we take the 
Vision thus simply as God’s promise, uttered in this 
man’s experience and echoed in our own! Shall I 
grudge any sacrifice, shall I count my wounds, shall 



The Vision of the I deal and Its Comfort 85 


I longer fear death, or even the long farewell to love, 
if I can believe that beyond my pain, and because of 
it, the Eternal City of Human Good shall be finally 
established? 

When Jesus endured the cross, it was “ for the joy 
set before him! 99 When the martyrs died, it was be¬ 
cause they had “ respect unto the recompense of the 
reward! ” When John suffered his agony of exile, it 
was with patience and invincible courage that he en¬ 
dured because “ I John saw ” the great reward, the 
Holy City having “ the glory of God.” 

Christina Rosetti has enshrined this inspiration of 
the Vision in a wonderful little poem which reads 
thus: 

The goal in sight! Look up and sing. 

Set faces full against the light. 

Welcome with rapturous welcoming 
The goal in sight. 

Let be the left, let be the right. 

Straight forward! make your footsteps ring 

A loud alarum through the night. 

Death hunts you, yea, but reft of sting. 

Your bed is green, your shroud is white. 

Hail! Life and Death, and all that bring 
The goal in sight. 

The grand courage of that poem may be yours and 
mine, if, like John, we will lift our eyes to the Vision, 
and keep them there, fixed unalterably upon the 
promise of God. 



86 


Cod's Better Thing 


Keeping with Christ the Secret of 
Keeping the Vision 

If you study this Book of Revelation you will find 
it born in communion with Christ. Read the wonder¬ 
ful first chapter, and see how the commencement of 
these rich anticipations of a redeemed world lay in 
the vision of Christ himself. “ I turned to see the 
voice that spake to me, and I saw one like unto the Son 
of man.” The Vision of the Ideal for human society 
inheres in Jesus. Make sure of him, and his Spirit 
will never let you forget his passion or permit your 
eyes to grow dim to his ideal. The Light of the 
World streams ever onward to the shining Goal, and 
they who company with him must needs be entranced 
likewise by his purpose. He embodies in himself the 
final good of man. There is a touching story told of 
a man and wife whose missionary passion took them 
into a wild heathen country amongst tribes of the 
most degraded savages. Continually the husband had 
to travel on missions of itinerant preaching, on any one 
of which he might at any moment lose his life, whilst 
it was scarcely less dangerous for him to leave his wife 
so unprotected amongst natives of such unstable char¬ 
acter. To strengthen each other in their duty, hus¬ 
band and wife developed a habit of saying their fare¬ 
well in front of a picture of Jesus in Gethsemane. 
Solemnly each would in turn point to the picture and 
say, “ Farewell, dearest, it is for his sake and for his 
kingdom .” Thus month by month and year by year 



The Vision of the Ideal and Its Comfort 87 


they drew the strength for their great sacrifice from 
him who bore the cross for them, and under his leader¬ 
ship never doubted for one moment but that the Way 
of the Cross was the way to complete victory. 

If we can but keep him and his kingdom in view, is 
there any sacrifice we can grudge to his cause? Is it 
not better that roe should suffer the loss of all things 
than fail in willingness that his kingdom should come? 
If we could see that kingdom in its matchless beauty, 
if its jeweled walls and gates of pearl, its sinless, tear¬ 
less, deathless, God-illumined society could gladden 
our eyes, we should no longer count the cost, or deem 
our sacrifice great, we should instead yield rapturous 
welcome to the “ goal in sight.” This is the vision 
that Jesus brings to every soul that receives him, even 
as he promised, “ He that followeth me shall have the 
Light of Life.” 

We are builders of that city; 

All our joys and all our groans 

Help to rear its shining ramparts. 

All our lives are building stones. 

For that city we must labor. 

For its sake bear pain and grief; 

In it find the end of living. 

And the anchor of belief. 


G 



IX 


THE JOY OF THE GENEROUS HEART 

One of the most profound and beautiful of Christ’s 
sayings is preserved for us by Saint Paul. Speaking in 
farewell to the Elders of Ephesus he quotes Jesus as 
saying “ It is happier to give than to receive.” 

It is a pity that, just because this comes to us 
through the Acts of the Apostles instead of the Gos¬ 
pels, we should fail, as we do, to realize that it really 
is a word from Christ himself. That we do so fail 
is indicated by the jocular way in which this saying 
is used. Again and again it is quoted by Christian 
people in such a way as to show plainly that they are 
frankly skeptical as to its truth. Yet the sayings of 
our Lord, let it be emphatically said, do not admit 
of skepticism. They are all “ wonderful words of 
life,” to be tested in our experience and found true. 
The simple truth of this saying could find no stronger 
evidence than in the abounding joy which results from 
Christmas generosity. Dickens* great parable of the 
conversion of Scrooge is, as every reader feels, abso¬ 
lutely true to life. So far then from feeling annoyed 
by the large number and great urgency of the various 
appeals that are made to us, let us show our faith in 
Jesus by regarding them as a golden opportunity for 
realizing the Joy of the Generous Heart! 

88 


The /op of the Generous Heart 


89 


For this /op is intensely) real . It is a matter of 
human experience. It is not for nothing that the words 
“ miser ” and “ miserable ” are so nearly alike. The 
words reflect the judgment of humanity concerning the 
misery of the miserly spirit. Of course it is real giving 
that Jesus means. His standard is a severe one as we 
know. He watched the rich men pouring their gifts 
into the temple treasury, and the poor widow putting 
in her two mites and, with profound insight, instead 
of placing his measuring-line on the gifts, he placed it 
on what the givers retained for themselves. The value 
of any gift in his sight is evidently the degree of sacri¬ 
fice which it entails. For only then does the giver give 
a part of himself. “ The gift without the giver is 
bare.” This was always Christ’s peculiar emphasis in 
the matter of giving. Speaking on one occasion to the 
Pharisees, who rejoiced in their reputation for alms¬ 
giving, Jesus uttered the great word “ Give for alms 
the things that are within." Christ’s chief demand is 
for those gifts of brain and heart, of soul and sympa¬ 
thy and personal devotion which, directed upon so¬ 
ciety, help to do away with that abject need which 
calls for “ charity.” 

Have you ever noticed how Frances Ridley Haver- 
gal, in her famous hymn, follows up the couplet relat¬ 
ing to money with the consecration of the intellect? 

Take my silver and my gold. 

Not a mite would I withhold; 

Take my intellect and use 
Every power as Thou shalt choose. 



90 


God's Better Thing 


This is the better form of charity, the true alms¬ 
giving, so to use one’s brains as to help men to need 
no help. How often our gifts become a substitute for 
fellowship. They are offered to get rid of another’s 
importunity or to relieve us of awkward responsibility. 
Jesus insists that it is only the soul who makes the 
inward gift of real sympathy and love for whom the 
fullest joy is reserved. The joy of the giver is not for 
the mere “ bestower,” it is only for the “ generous 
heart.” 

Perfect Possession 

When we further examine this experience we find 
that there are ascending degrees of this joy. The Joy 
of the Generous Heart is in the first place the joy of 
possession. We all know the sense of power which 
comes with ownership of property. This experience 
is so real that it has become almost a mania with all 
civilized peoples. Yet a more careful analysis dis¬ 
covers that it is not the retention of goods, or land, or 
money that preserves and perfects this Joy of posses¬ 
sion, but their use. The supreme moment therefore 
of this joy is found when one exercises one’s possessive 
power at its ultimate point—namely, in the act of 
giving. Never is one’s power of possession so evident, 
and therefore so vivid to oneself, as when one is 
royally and freely disposing of one’s property. There 
is a good story told of Andrew Carnegie, who had a 
passion for flowers. His gardener came to him one 
day complaining that the public made too free with 



The Joy of the Generous Heart 


91 


his choicest roses, picking them liberally from the beds 
close to the road. The old man listened to him pa¬ 
tiently and then said, with a chuckle in his voice: “ So, 
Donald, the people appreciate our roses, do they? 
Then we must plant more of them! ” 

There is indeed so much pleasure derivable from 
this supreme expression of power, that “ charity ” may 
easily degenerate into a cheap self-pleasing. One 
enjoys the importance and sensation attached to 
liberality. 

Self-respect 

Closely allied to this joy of perfect possession is the 
joy of heightened self-respect. The human soul wor¬ 
ships secretly all the fundamental virtues, however it 
may fail to realize them in action. It accordingly 
worships generosity, and every approximation to it, 
however shallow, registers itself in an easier conscience 
and a higher self-esteem. 

So true is this that alms-giving has been recognized 
in all religions as a most dangerous source of pride. 
There was, for example, attached to the practise by 
the Pharisees, a great doctrine of merit. The giving 
of alms won immense favor with God, and if with 
God then with themselves. 

One of the fundamental features of Paul’s teaching 
is his consciousness of how easily one’s very virtue may, 
in this way, become the source of a corrupting pride 
and self-esteem. There is but one way of escape from 
this subtle peril, namely, to learn how to give to the 



92 


God's Better Thing 


point where self is utterly lost sight of—where pity 
and love and good-will so consume the soul that one’s 
right hand does not know what one’s left hand does, 
so completely is ” self ” forgotten. This brings us 
to the supreme level of the “ joy of the generous 
heart,” to the “ joy of real human and divine fellow¬ 
ship." 

The Joy of “Kind’Vness 

“ Generosity ” and “ kindness ” are both words 
which convey in their root meanings the idea of racial 
connection, of actions which honor the family bond of 
humanity and plunge one into the common life of the 
whole of Being. They represent such a sinking of 
self in one’s gens or “ kind,” that it becomes an in¬ 
stance of 

All the flood-tide of the world’s great anguish 
Forced thro’ the channel of a single heart. 

And that tremendous experience brings with it a 
great “ joy.” “ Happy are the merciful, for they 
shall receive mercy.” “ He that seeketh to lose his 
life for my sake, shall find it." 

The “ miser,” the selfish man, cuts himself off from 
humanity and impoverishes every sensation—espe¬ 
cially that of joy. It was when Silas Marner per¬ 
mitted a little girl to bridge, with her love, the gulf 
between his hardened heart and his fellow men, that 
he began to live and to enjoy life again. Who so 
miserable as Scrooge till he took the plunge into the 



The Jo p of the Generous Heart 


93 


common human life about him, and then who so 
happy? The ancient Greeks used to speak of the 
private person, the exclusive person, as idiotes , from 
which we obtain our modern epithet of “ idiot,” and 
its meaning is still much the same. Nothing is so 
“ idiotic ” as greed and snobbery and the idea that 
one can be happy all by oneself. 

Not in what we have, but in what we share. 

For the gift without the giver is bare, 

says Lowell, and he is right. 

Yet there is a farther height still in this matter. 
Joy is mounting higher and higher and growing purer 
at every fresh level. The supreme joy is ours when, 
in true generosity of spirit, we enter into perfect fel¬ 
lowship with our Lord. Only the self-abandoned 
soul ever really reaches Christ. 

Thus we see that this question of “ giving ” is not 
a fringe aspect of the Christian life—it is the very way 
of salvation for our souls. If we follow our Lord he 
brings us to this spirit of utter self-abnegation. He 
brings us to the perfect consecration of all we pos¬ 
sess and all we are, and in every real sacrifice of 
our self or our substance we achieve a closer fellow¬ 
ship with him. This is the meaning of his famous 
words, “ Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, 
ye did it unto me.” “ Whoso receiveth one of these 
little ones, receiveth me.” The Joy of the Generous 
Heart is the joy of perfect Union with Christ. “ He 
that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God,” 



94 


Cod's Better Thing 


There is a very beautiful story told in the life of 
Frank Crossley, the famous engineer. He employed 
a young engineer upon a certain piece of work which 
turned out to be a disastrous failure. Although the 
failure was due to miscalculation on the younger man’s 
part, Frank Crossley treated him with magnanimous 
generosity and subsidized him in a fresh attempt which 
retrieved the failure of the first. Speaking of Cross- 
ley afterward to a friend the young engineer exclaimed 
earnestly and reverently, “ He treated me as I believe 
Jesus Christ would have done.” It is a great tribute, 
that! It is in that identification of our spirit with 
Christ’s that our salvation lies, it is the great highway 
into the purest joy possible to the human soul, into 
“ the joy of the Lord,” the Joy of the Most Generous 
Heart. 


Financing the Kingdom of God 

Nov> if this be all true , then the Christian rvill or¬ 
ganize his life upon this truth . 

All our relation to this world’s goods, property, or 
money, will be built not upon the maxims of the world 
but upon the evident truth of Christ’s great epigram, 
which but for Paul we had not known, “ It is happier 
to give than to receive.” 

It is for this wholesale change that the church is 
waiting. Christian people really cannot afford to ape 
the standard of living and expenditure of their non- 
Christian neighbors. They cannot afford it because 
they have in addition to finance the kingdom of Cod. 



The Joy of the Generous Heart 


95 


One fears that the relation of many Christian men and 
women to this, their fundamental responsibility, is any¬ 
thing but adequately realized. We give to the church 
just as much as we can conveniently spare, but we do 
not so organize our life as to be able to spare the 
maximum amount; yet all we have is supposed to be 
dedicated to God. What ingenuity and resource— 
what self-denial men will put into saving for a home, or 
raising capital for a new business, or to purchase some 
work of art—but to build the kingdom of God! For 
that their giving is left to be haphazard, as they feel 
at this moment or that, as they are appealed to elo¬ 
quently or otherwise: 

First Things First 

What is needed is that men and women shall say: 
“We are Christians before we are members of so¬ 
ciety ; we will plan our life with a view to the economy 
of the kingdom of God; Christ looks not upon our 
gift but upon the sacrifice it involves.” Then the 
Christian public would startle the world with its giv¬ 
ing—then the “ sinews of the holiest war ” would 
never be slack, and Christian gold would speedily 
pave the streets of a City of God. 

Ask yourself seriously, What am I doing with my 
substance? Is it simply ministering to my own plea¬ 
sure or comfort or to the purposes of the world, or is 
it really being devoted to the furtherance of the king¬ 
dom of God? 



96 


GoJ’s Better Thing 


For His Sake 

As a wit once remarked, “ Personal consecration 
is of little value unless it is purse-and-all.” The great 
thing to bear in mind is to put the claim of the Lord’s 
work in the forefront of ones thought , so that the first 
idea to greet any windfall of prosperity will be not 
self-indulgence or the pride of worldly display, but 
the need of the kingdom of God. “ As the Lord hath 
prospered you,” says the apostle in writing of this 
matter, and he was not thinking, I am sure, merely of 
worldly prosperity, but of that vast contribution to our 
spiritual well-being which the Christian society brings 
with it, and which can never be measured in terms of 
cash-value. 

Think of all Christ sacrificed for you and me, the 
wealth that he surrendered that “ through his poverty 
we might become rich,” and then go out into life no 
longer to ask, “ How little,” but “ How much can I 
give ”? For it is the Lord of Truth who declares to 
you, It is happier to give than to receive.” 



X 


THE CHURCH AND SPIRITUALISM 

A new age of death has come upon the world. 
The bitterness of bereavement was nevermore widely 
spread in Europe. Little wonder, then, that hosts of 
minds are being newly attracted to the claims of 
spiritualism. Even the most prejudiced of us finds it 
hard to avoid the strong presumption that so vast a 
throng could scarcely have passed the portals of death 
without straining all the barriers between the world we 
know and the world beyond our sight. 

When, therefore, books like “ Raymond ” and 
“ Christopher ” by Sir Oliver Lodge appear, serious, 
reverent declarations of belief, one is scarcely sur¬ 
prised to find them enjoying a considerable vogue in 
the churches. 

The fact that so many are turning to these books 
in the yearning for comfort, throws into relief the con¬ 
fused and halting testimony of the modern church 
concerning the life to come. We are very nervous in 
our handling of the subject and scarcely know our 
own mind. We cannot return to the old positions, yet 
are too timid to advance to the new; meanwhile, our 
people turn elsewhere. 

As one eminent divine has aptly said, “ The divi- 

97 


98 


God's Better Thing 


sion of the future life into perpetual church on the 
one hand and perpetual gaol on the other is a cruel 
mockery of human hopes.” 

The times demand a more definite and coherent 
teaching on the part of the church concerning the 
problems of human destiny, and especially do they 
demand a clear policy regarding the growing cult 
of spiritualism. The writer, therefore, deems it use¬ 
ful to set forth the following considerations: 

The Quest for Truth 

1. The Quest for Truth must be Respected. 

Few things are more unhappy in the church’s record 
than her relation to scientific endeavor and discovery. 
Her nervousness in these matters reflects very little 
confidence in the truth she possesses. It is high time 
that we improved upon that record, for in all her his¬ 
toric objections to science the church has been badly 
beaten. She opposed Galileo in his discovery of the 
truth of the solar system, but she had to give in to the 
facts. The use of anesthetics was once opposed on 
religious grounds, but we have had to recognize their 
value. The theory of evolution was bitterly opposed, 
but today it is taught in all our schools, and no modern 
mind can escape the facts. To what does all this 
point? It points to a whole body of truth that is 
coming into man’s possession by the faithful use of the 
faculties God has given him, a body of truth over and 
above, but not necessarily in opposition to, the revela¬ 
tion of God in the Scriptures. Let us beware how we 



The Church and Spiritualism 


99 


oppose that body of truth, lest we be fighting against 
God. Did not Jesus promise men a Spirit who should 
lead into all truth, and dare we conceive of the Spirit’s 
operations as confined to the first few years of the 
Christian era? Truth wherever we find it—indispu¬ 
table fact—must be part of the mind of Christ, and 
for that very reason must be reconcilable with those 
eternal and fundamental truths which religion holds in 
trust for all mankind. 

We of the churches ought therefore, to be very 
careful of our attitude toward the considered and 
weighty finds of such men of known integrity and in¬ 
telligence as Henry Sidgwick, Sir William Crookes, 
Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, F. W. H. Myers, Sir 
Oliver Lodge, and more recently Sir Arthur Conan 
Doyle. 

The modern world, trained in a stern scientific 
loyalty to truth for truth’s sake, will respect only a 
church which is every whit as loyal, at whatever cost 
to its preconceived opinions, to Him who declared, “ I 
am the Truth.” We can never serve Christ by op¬ 
posing the spirit of investigation; we can best serve 
Christ by keeping that spirit free from pride and evil 
purpose, and instinct with reverence toward God and 
love toward man. 

We cannot say either that there is anything inher¬ 
ently improbable in such a development of human 
powers that we may be able to communicate with 
friends “ beyond the veil.” An attitude, therefore, 
of unreasoning hostility is unworthy of us. 



100 


God's Better Thing 


Sir Oliver Lodge has a caustic and clever article on 
this point in a recent issue of the “ Hibbert Journal ” 
called “ After Twenty-five Years,” in which he points 
out that, compared with other things we accept as fact, 
there is nothing very difficult of belief in what he 
presents. 

We believe, for example, [he says] that bread, cabbages, 
meat, can be so assimilated and transformed as to be built 
up into the form of the human body. How much more dif¬ 
ficult is it to believe that a spirit being can manipulate a table 
or a pen through the physical being of another? 

Yes, we must listen to him. We may reject his 
explanations, if we can do so honestly, but to oppose 
him with blind prejudice is not honest. The quest for 
truth must be respected, though truth-seekers blunder 
in their quest. 

But, and this is just as important, because the quest 
for truth must be respected, this particular investiga¬ 
tion should not become a popular cult, to be under¬ 
taken by any Tom, Dick, or Harry who cares to claim 
the powers of mediumship. Respect for truth, es¬ 
pecially in so sacred a connection, will put us strongly 
on our guard against “ spiritualism as a popular 
movement. The awful mortification of mind and 
sense of desecration that falls upon the unhappy soul 
who in an endeavor to come into communication with 
the beloved dead, finds at last that he has been tricked 
by clever and lying impostors, is an experience that 
every soul should shun. 



The Church and Spiritualism 


101 


We know too well how this whole matter lends it¬ 
self with fatal ease to the “ charlatan ” and the 
“ cheat ”—to the vampire who fattens on the out¬ 
raged feelings of suffering souls. 

That, in itself, is no reflection on honest inquirers 
following careful methods—every science has its 
realm of fraud and quackery. The astronomer is 
hampered by the astrologer, the doctor by the quack, 
the dentist by the unqualified and inefficient operator. 
We do not therefore condemn medicine and as¬ 
tronomy. No, we safeguard and respect and help on 
the expert, and refuse to patronize the quack. If 
there are strong reasons for that in matters pertain¬ 
ing to the body, how much more regarding the soul! 

In so delicate and difficult and dangerous an in¬ 
quiry as this, there is every reason why, until assured 
knowledge has been gained, investigation should be 
reserved to expert scientists and philosophers such as 
form the Society for Psychical Research. For this 
reason I believe the societies that would make spiri¬ 
tualism everybody’s business are doing incalculable 
harm, not merely in leading many souls astray from 
more fundamental interests, but in bringing disrepute 
upon and actually hindering this investigation. 

We do not allow children to play with fire. We 
do not allow everybody to conduct experiments with 
dangerous chemicals. The case of spiritualism is 
parallel. People are playing with psychic forces they 
only partially understand, and again and again the 
result is demoralization of personality. 



102 


God's Better Thing 


Many observers of spiritualism have detected a ten¬ 
dency toward a depreciated moral tone. There are 
few ministers who have not known some families either 
broken up or greatly distressed by spiritualistic mania. 
Thus Godfrey Raupert writes: 

There is many a case on record in which some trivial but 
convincing message from the other world has been instrumental 
in awakening and stimulating moral energy, but experience 
unfortunately teaches that this attitude of the mind is hardly 
ever maintained. It gives place to a craving for new and more 
striking experiences, and this craving for the abnormal, this 
ceaseless hunt after phenomena is calculated to affect seriously 
the moral nature. 

Neither can the possibility of invasion ” of per¬ 
sonality by “ evil ” spiritual forces be entirely ignored. 
If we believe in the existence of a spiritual world and 
the influence upon us of spiritual beings, then the sys¬ 
tematic subjection of oneself to spiritualistic control 
may at any moment put one in the power of “ evil ’* 
or “ inferior ” spirits. 

These are some of the dangers that beset such an 
inquiry. All pursuit of truth has its perils. They 
form an argument, not for the abandonment of the 
quest, but for its regulation, and for the pioneering 
of experts before any popular movement shall be 
attempted. 

Let us respect this investigation then in both these 
ways. Let us listen carefully to the scientist, but be 
on our guard against the charlatan, and discourage 
any “ popular ” cult in this thing. 



The Church and Spiritualism 


103 


Spiritualism of the New Testament 

2. There is a Spiritualism of the Nerv Testament. 

No reader of the New Testament can fail to ap¬ 
preciate the constant sense of contact with the other 
world that pervades its pages. There is for example 
the ministry of angels; the story of the Transfigura¬ 
tion, with the centuries united in Moses and Elijah 
conversing with Jesus; the stories in the Acts of the 
Apostles, and especially, that famous passage in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews which says that “ we are come 
unto the spirits of just men made perfect.” 

Everywhere we find assumed a keen interest in our 
life on the part of those who inhabit the Better Land. 
Innumerable warnings and assumptions there are too, 
of demoniac influence reflecting, to be sure, the views 
of the time when the New Testament was written, but 
after all not so easily dismissed. 

But the most impressive fact is this, that New Tes¬ 
tament spiritualism is dominated at every point and 
moment by the presence of the Supreme Lord of 
Spirits—Jesus Christ the Saviour. His Name is 
above every name, and demons lose their power in his 
presence, and all the communion of saints is in and 
through him—he is the Mediator of men as well as 
of God. 

Hence it is that in the very passage where the writer 
to the Hebrews refers to the cloud of witnesses sur¬ 
rounding our earthly struggle, he tells us to concen¬ 
trate our attention, not upon these, but upon Christ; 

H 



104 


Cod's Better Thing 


“ looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our 
faith.” 

Similarly, whilst he tells us that we are come unto 
hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church 
of the first-born enrolled in heaven, and to the spirits 
of the just made perfect, the interest of this approach 
to the spiritual world is all centered in coming unto 
“ Jesus the mediator.” 

In the light of this fact, much of our interest in the 
other world stands rebuked. We know how easy it is 
to attend to men rather than to Christ. It is just as 
easy to attend to “ the spirits of the just made perfect ” 
to the exclusion of Christ. 

Spiritualism is constantly referred to by spiritualists 
as a religion. It is a description I entirely fail to un¬ 
derstand. Religion is the soul’s bond with God, 
whereas spiritualism may all too easily be a seeking of 
inferior spiritual company, a forgetting of our supreme 
Spiritual Companion. 

Christianity is essentially “ looking unto Jesus,” it 
is the government of every human relation by the soul’s 
relation to Christ. 

Now it is just this forgetfulness of Christ and his 
service that constitutes one of the chief perils of spiri¬ 
tualism. It is as though a child at school were on fire 
with anxiety .to converse with the girls of an upper 
class, to the exclusion of attention to those lessons, the 
learning of which will alone fit her for her own place 
in their company. Or as though a son were to go 
across the world and spend all his time and energy 



The Church and Spiritualism 


105 


in seeking to communicate with his relatives in the 
homeland, instead of getting on with his work and 
making his fortune. Lovely letters and bright com¬ 
munications do not compensate for simple allegiance 
to duty and to task. If we are to be kept faithful to 
Christ’s work in the world, we need all the inspira¬ 
tion we can draw from communion with him, and we 
must be careful that interest in others does not rob 
him of the fulness of our energies. 

Not Communication, but Communion 

Further still, and this brings us to our third finding, 
this communion with Christ is the only satisfactory basis 
for the communion of souls. So— 

3. Our Chief Need is not Sight but Faith; not 
Communication of Spirits , but Communion in the 
Spirit . 

Communion with Christ alone will safeguard the 
soul’s integrity from all evil influences of the spirit 
world. Communion with Christ alone will assure us 
of permanent and satisfying communion with those we 
love. 

What, after all, is the greatest obstacle between 
soul and soul? Not the veil of matter hiding the 
spiritual world. Not time or space, or the sundering 
of worlds —not any of these things separate soul from 
soul with any such impassable gulf as does sin. 

A spiritualism therefore, which ignores that factor, 
which begins and ends in mere “ communication of 
spirits,” without any real interest in a gospel of re- 



106 


God’s Better Thing 


demption and the saving grace of Christ, is utterly in¬ 
adequate to human needs, and, in so far as it absorbs 
human interest and energy, it is pernicious. 

What will it profit me to learn that my loved one 
lives in that other world unless at the same time I am 
assured of the “ moral fitness ” that will bring me at 
last to her side in a like purity and goodness? And 
only Christ can bring me there. 

So it is faith in him we need rather than any sight 
or hearing that “ mediums 99 profess to supply. Is 
there not something forced and artificial in our willing¬ 
ness to hear the testimony of “ spiritualistic mediums,” 
whilst we ignore and fail to rest in the testimony of 
him who said: “ In my Father’s house are many man¬ 
sions; if it were not so, I would have told you.” 
“ Because I live, ye shall live also! ” 

Let us ask ourselves what after all has Sir Oliver 
Lodge accomplished, if “ Raymond ” be true? He 
has proved that his boy lives after death. Is that 
much? Is that enough? 

In the first place, faith plays a big part in it. Sir 
Oliver Lodge believes in his mediums. In the second 
place, he only needs to receive a message revealing 
disaster to Raymond, either moral or physical, to be 
plunged at once into terrible distress of mind and to 
realize that “ spiritualism ” is not enough. Unless the 
great common element of souls, Christ our Creator and 
Redeemer, is in possession, there can be no true and 
satisfying communion. 

“ Spiritualism ” therefore can never be a substitute 



The Church and Spiritualism 


107 


for the Christian faith; at most, it represents but a 
small part of our spiritual interests. It ought never, 
therefore, to have broken away from the Christian 
church as a separate movement. 

It reminds one very much of a clever little parable 
concerning a caterpillar that was in too great a hurry 
to be a butterfly. He climbed the stalks of grasses and 
hurled himself from the top in the belief that the air 
would support him; he fell ignominiously to the ground. 
He poked his nose into the delicate cups of the flowers, 
seeking to extract their honey; he only succeeded in 
spoiling them. Finally, he entered the chrysalis stage, 
and at length emerged—a butterfly, indeed, but in a 
rather damaged condition. He had not realized that 
his first duty was to be a good caterpillar! And many 
who take an interest in the problem of the future life 
ignore the insistence of Scripture that the first qualifi¬ 
cation for reaching and enjoying the fellowship of 
those high realms is just to be a good man, by the grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Let us turn away from the uncertainties and 
problematical findings even of scientific investigators, 
away especially from the practise of intercourse with 
spirits who may be rogues of the underworld, rather 
than lords of the overworld, unto that One who toler¬ 
ates no medium between himself and the souls he died 
to save, and listening again to him, believe him, and 
rest in him. For “ them also that are asleep in Jesus 
will God bring with him 



XI 


THOUGHTS TOWARD REVIVAL 
A Study of Pentecost 

“ And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began 
to speak • • • And f/iep continued stedfastly in doctrine and 
fellowship, in breaking bread and prayers. . . And they that 
believed were together and had all things common, and parted 
their possessions to all men as every man had need. .. And 
they did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. . . 
praising God and having favour with all the people. And the 
Lord added unto the church daily such as Were being saved.** 
—Acts 2 : 4, 42, 44-47. 

This eloquent word picture shows us the first 
Christian church as a community singularly united in 
spiritual experience and testimony, singularly perfect 
in fellowship, and singularly successful in evangelism. 

Bankrupt Institutions 

Surely a study of such a community should yield 
some sound guidance for the revival of religious faith 
in these critical days. No one will dispute the appall¬ 
ing need for revival. There are at this time millions 
plunged in sorrow; groping blindly in the mists of 
death, without sure guidance and adequate comfort. 
Never was there such a need and hunger for a Gospel 
of Consolation. There is a fearful spreading of sin- 
108 


Thoughts Toward Revival 


109 


borne disease, and a terrible decline in moral tone and 
conduct. Never was there such need for a Gospel of 
Redemption. There are hosts of lives dwelling in a 
hell of unrest and doubt and fear. Never was there 
such likelihood of response to a real fellowship that 
makes faith easier. And never was it plainer to the 
average man that religion is the one force likely to 
succeed. All other institutions are bankrupt. 

Science, by itself, has proved to be too easily the 
handmaid of war. 

Education, by itself, may produce only clever 
devils. 

Commerce, in itself, is now more than ever disrup¬ 
tive, lost in Tariffism and Competition. 1 

Statecraft, however idealistic in language, has re¬ 
vealed itself as almost incorrigibly cynical in temper 
and in action. 

Religion’s Reserve of Possibility 

Religion alone seems to possess a reserve of possi¬ 
bility, a promise of greater things. But it is religion 
in its essential purity, rather than the church, that 
yields this hope. The church can never find revival, 
save in a great repentance. She must realize how ter¬ 
rible has been her failure. Those prophets who cry, 
“ Peace, peace,” within her border, and try to tell us 
there is nothing so much wrong after all, are as those 
who dance at a funeral. They rattle dry bones in the 

1 Where this is otherwise there is traceable a distinctly religious in¬ 
fluence. 



110 


Co d’s Better Thing 


valley of the dead. The cheer they offer our droop¬ 
ing spirits is but the faintest zephyr. Nothing will 
avail but the mighty rushing wind of the Spirit of 
God, and the way for that must be opened by a great 
repentance. Wbat are the facts? Since the Middle 
Ages, notably since Luther’s shameful betrayal of 
the peasants of Germany—a fact intimately related 
to the present war—the Christian church in Europe 
has been steadily losing its hold on the masses of the 
people. The Evangelical Revival was but a brief in¬ 
terlude, and the process had almost completed itself 
by the end of the nineteenth century. The opening 
years of this twentieth century have seen the church 
as steadily losing its hold on the middle classes and the 
well-to-do. Any one who cares to read Henry 
Carter’s “ The Church and the New Age ” will find 
all too ample evidence of these facts. The failure of 
the church to be the church of the masses, to stand for 
the people and with the people, is producing the cu¬ 
rious nemesis that she is losing even the classes. Her 
punishment, however, does not end there. She is los¬ 
ing herself. The figures of decline in church and Sun¬ 
day school recently published ought to ring an alarm 
tocsin for the whole church. Mr. Carey Bonner, in 
a recent address, computes the Sunday school losses 
of fourteen Free Church denominations in Great Brit¬ 
ain over a course of seven years at 257,952 teachers 
and scholars. During the ten years that have elapsed 
since the last Church Attendance Census was taken in 
London, the figures of attendance have dropped by 



Thoughts Toward Revival 


111 


fifty per cent. Some part of this decline may be due 
to the war, but it is so colossal that we had need seek 
some alleviation. Here, then, is a record of steady and 
general failure, of declining membership and schools, 
of alienated democracies, over a course of generations 
blessed with freedom of speech, with improved edu¬ 
cation, with all the advantages of a religious press 
and literature—days one would have thought of 
unique opportunity for the Christian church. With 
such a record, dare we say that the Christian church 
has no responsibility for that condition of Europe 
which made the Great War possible in 1914? 

Yet, in spite of these alarming facts, with all the 
urgency represented by the church’s instinct of self- 
preservation, the chronic disunity of the churches 
continues. 

The one gleam of hope lies in the possibility of 
arousing the church to her peril, of developing in her 
heart a real desire for revival, of getting her really 
and passionately to “ call on the Name of the Lord.” 

A church that knows its failure, that truly repents 
and shows concern for its condition, has already 
opened the way for the reviving Breath of God. If 
she holds to that way of repentance, her conscious¬ 
ness of her Lord will deepen to a new vision. Once 
again she will “ fall in love ” with him and follow 
him at all cost; once more it will become her meat and 
drink to do the beautiful will of God. 

It is clear, then, that our need coincides with the 
first lesson from Pentecost. 



112 


God’s Better Thing 


The Spirit 

Revival must be of the Spirit. 

Only in a new and vivid experience of the Spirit of 
God can such revival come to the churches as they and 
the world need. A “ new spiritual impulse,” to bor¬ 
row Miss Swetenham’s phrase, is needed. It sounds 
a trite thing to say that we need a new Pentecost, but 
cannot we escape the triteness of it for once? A thing 
is “ trite ” only so long as we think we have exhausted 
its meaning. We have grown so used to this kind of 
remark, that we expect nothing. One thing would 
certainly freshen the phrase for us. The happening 
itself. Is not that possible? 

Let us assert, here and now, each in his own heart, 
that another Pentecost may be, nay, must be. If 
revival is to be, it must come in your heart and mine, 
and it must be a new coming of Divine Life, a more 
vivid thought of God, a quickened feeling of him, a 
surge of energy toward the doing of his will—his 
Spirit, nothing less, visiting you and me. 

Could we but hold that fact in our consciousness 
with sufficient simplicity , clearness , and patience , the 
great revival would simply begin. 

Our chief trouble is lack of simplicity and direct¬ 
ness. We will mystify this great experience. We 
have made a riddle of Pentecost instead of making a 
repetition of it. There is mystery in it, of course, as 
there is in a wayside flower, but there is great sim¬ 
plicity too. It is this, 



Thoughts Toward Revival 


113 


A patient and earnest concentration of mind upon 
Jesus brings to the soul the Holy Spirit of Cod. The 
Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Son. Think upon 
Jesus, clothe the Presence of the Living God with his 
character. That is the meaning of Jesus; he came 
to give form to God in our minds. Do this, and you 
cannot prevent the rise in your soul of that holy en¬ 
thusiasm for him which is everywhere in the New 
Testament the mark and proof of the Holy Spirit’s 
presence. 

This is precisely what happened at Pentecost. The 
thoughts of the disciples were fastened on Jesus. As 
they thought of him, love for him burned and burned 
in their hearts. Hearing the multitudes in the street, 
realizing the unique opportunity for evangelism with 
“ devout Jews there from every country under 
heaven,” they burned with the desire to speak for 
him. No wonder they saw tongues of lire. Their 
minds were full of tongues, their hearts craved the 
power of speech, their whole soul was yearning to¬ 
ward testimony. “ As I mused,” says the Psalmist, 
“ the fire burned.” 

Here is the highway to revival in our hearts and in 
our churches. We must Wait upon Christ more , until 
his beauty and love kindle our passion. We must em¬ 
phasize the word “ wait.” Our devotions are too 
hurried. Our non-conformist program of worship is 
too hurried and noisy. Our prayer-meetings are too 
full of voices and too lacking in “ the still small 
voice.” 



114 


God's Better Thing 


We read of these disciples that they formed a habit 
of Pentecost. “ They continued stedfastly in pray¬ 
ers,” and surely all their fellowship and prayer must 
have been colored and molded by that memorable ex¬ 
perience. Our churches need a habit of Pentecost. 
Again and again in Acts we read of the Holy Spirit 
coming upon the disciples. Pentecost was repeated 
again and again. So we need meetings for nothing 
else. The chief need in our churches is not teaching, 
however sound; it is not preaching, however eloquent; 
it is not numbers, however they may be drawn, but 
simply and solely the realization of Jesus as the 
Holy Spirit. This should be the one object and pas¬ 
sion of all our fellowship and worship. 

Such realization needs time, quietness, silence. I 
believe such a purpose would revolutionize and re¬ 
make our prayer-meetings. We should meet then, 
not for long harangues to the Almighty, not for weari¬ 
some repetition of the same requests, not to test our 
meeting’s success by the number of voices that audibly 
take part, but to open quietly our united heart to the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus 
our Lord. We should meet to deepen and intensify 
our consciousness of Christ. One can imagine all 
kinds of wonders happening inevitably in such a meet¬ 
ing: conviction of sin, confessing of guilt, new vows 
of service, new gifts of speech, new understandings of 
truth. That is, of course, if rve really believe that 
his presence might come through. 

Ah! real belief! that is our need. A new personal 



Thoughts Toward Revival 


115 


and collective conviction not of God first of all, but 
by Cod. This should be our immediate quest. 

The Ministry 

Such Revival of the Spirit would mean inevitably a 
revival of ministry. 

Following the story of Pentecost we find that with 
the gift of the Spirit came an equal ministry. “ They 
all began to speak.” 

It is time our churches got back to that condition. 
It should at any rate be the conscious ideal of our 
churches. What hosts of members we have who can 
say nothing and never dream of saying anything for 
Christ. It is not necessary to make the mistake of 
wanting every one to be a preacher to desire a greater 
number of articulate Christians in our ranks. It is an 
axiom of modern education that expression intensifies 
impression. Is this why the Spirit fades from the heart 
of the church, because its members choke and deny 
his natural ministry in themselves? 

We have heard much of the question, “ How shall 
the church reach the masses? ” The question con¬ 
tains its own answer. The church must reach the 
masses. Only the massed church can adequately 
deal with the massed people. It is, I believe, a self- 
evident fact that if one could make a list of all the 
relatives and personal friends, and finally the acquain¬ 
tances casually met, of our church-members, one 
would have a fairly reliable directory of the British 
Isles. The church, in its units, reaches the masses 



116 


Cod's Better Thing 


every day. But the units are silent, they have no min¬ 
istry—these points of contact are not sufficiently alive. 
Were they sufficiently magnetized by Jesus they could 
not fail to exercise his drawing ministry. 

The modern church is very much like an octopus 
trying to grasp its prey with its mouth alone, its 
numerous tentacles lying unused. Reliance on preach¬ 
ers, dependence on the pulpit alone, means egg-shell 
churches. When the egg disappears the shell col¬ 
lapses. 

Here, then, is another thought toward revival. 
Why should not every church be in all its members 
a great recruiting influence for the ranks of Christ’s 
army? Is it not the first business of all Christians to 
make other Christians? A revival of the Spirit will 
leave us passionately desirous of numbers, and cor¬ 
respondingly impatient with our empty pews. 

The Fellowship 

But , further , a Revival of the Spirit would mean 
also a Revival of Fellowship. 

There was a great outcry recently, when one of 
our leading divines deplored that more fellowship 
was often to be found in a public house than in many 
of our churches. But the outcry only shows how our 
intense love of respectability blinds us to serious de¬ 
fects. The cohesion of the poor is the wonder of 
the world. The brokenness of the church is the be¬ 
trayal of the world. It should be obvious to us all 
by now that on/p a thoroughly socialized church can 



Thoughts Toward Revival 


117 


lead a rapidly socializing world. When we speak to 
men of the world about the Ideal Society they are 
apt to reply with something approaching a sneer, 
“ Yes, like your own denomination, I suppose? ” It 
seems almost incredible that the Christian church 
should continue to maintain within her own borders 
the economic standards and system of the world; that 
Christian business men can remain so satisfied with a 
system of competitive commerce that is utterly ruthless 
and obviously subchristian, to describe it mildly. That 
first Christian community under the unimpaired impulse 
of the Holy Spirit fell naturally into a voluntary com¬ 
munism. I have never been able to understand why 
everything else about Pentecost should be vested with 
divine authority whilst its “ communism ” should be 
dismissed as a mistake. Why should this invaluable 
social effect, this triumph of fellowship, be viewed as 
less authoritative as the work of the Spirit than “ they 
all began to speak with tongues,” or ” they continued 
stedfastly in prayer.” If we, too, are to receive the 
Holy Ghost, are we to reject the natural passion for 
sharing that he delights in? 

Some greater “ pooling of resources ” than any¬ 
thing the churches have yet achieved must result from 
this new impulse of the Spirit of God. Something of 
that ” equality of substance ” for which Paul pleads 
so significantly in Second Corinthians 8 : 14,” that 
your abundance may supply their want, that their 
abundance may supply your want, that there may be 
equality .” Nothing would so surely prove to the 



God's Better Thing 


118 


thinking masses of our day that the Christian church 
is truly the custodian of God’s gospel for the poor. 

Consider how easily rich church-members tolerate 
the existence of fellow Christians whose whole life 
is one hard grind against poverty! Think how toler¬ 
able rich churches find it that poor churches should 
continue to exist! 

The test of fellowship in the last resort is practical. 
What am I doing for my fellow Christian? If our 
commitment to God is supposed, to use the old pun, 
to be “ purse-and-all,” must not our commitment to 
one another go the same length? 

A visitation of the Holy Spirit could not but result 
in better financial relations between members of 
churches and between churches. The question of re¬ 
vival is very closely bound up with what we call “ the 
sinews of war.” Many churches are cursed with 
nothing but poverty, resulting in inefficient buildings 
and obsolete apparatus for their great work. Did we, 
as a nation, dream of carrying on the great war against 
the Central Powers on a principle of separate regi¬ 
mental funds, each responsible only for its own equip¬ 
ment and its own resources? 

That “ communistic ” result, which must of course 
be purely voluntary, can follow only upon a new 
“ love of the brethren,” and on this matter Christ has 
not left us in the dark. “ By this shall all men know 
ye are my disciples,” he said, “ that ye love one 
another.” Jesus pinned his trust, not to the pulpit, not 
to the apostolate, not to a special order of men, but 



Thoughts Toward Revival 


119 


to the fellowship of his disciples, to the quality of their 
fellowship. It is not possible to have a genius in every 
pulpit, but it is possible to have a real practical fel¬ 
lowship in every church. 

The members of our churches must fraternize more. 
They must “ break bread ” from house to house. If 
they will not do so, then, however much the minister 
may struggle to make himself a kind of living escala¬ 
tor between the families of his church, he cannot 
maintain the unity of the church, or make it an im¬ 
pressive fellowship. If we do not love our fellow 
members, if we do not long to minister to them, if 
there is no enthusiasm on our part to meet them and 
pool the resources of life with them, then let us ask, 
have we ever known the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy 
Spirit of God? 

Once we get ourselves and the churches asking 
that question in real earnest, the day of revival will 
have dawned. For “ it is not by might, nor by power, 
but by my Spirit , saith the Lord of Hosts.” 



XII 


“ COME! ” 

What Does It Mean? 

A young man of brilliant intellect, a lawyer by 
profession, was leaving a crowded church with a 
friend. They had listened to a passionate and elo¬ 
quent appeal based on the great invitation and chal¬ 
lenge of Christianity, the words of our Lord, Come 
unto Me . . . and I will give you rest.” Presently the 
friend turned to him and said: 

“ How do you do it? How is one to come? How 
can you come to One who lived and died nearly two 
thousand years ago? 

The lawyer was a member of a Christian church, 
but he confessed afterward to the writer that he found 
himself strangely unable to give what he felt was a 
satisfactory reply. The intense reality that seemed 
to pervade the subject inside the church seemed to 
evaporate upon contact with the world outside. He 
felt he had no reply that he could make confidently 
to his friend’s questions: “ How does one come to 
Christ? ” “ What does it really mean? ” 

There is a ring of sublime confidence about this 
invitation and challenge that Jesus extends to the un¬ 
satisfied soul. Moreover, a great host of people have 
120 


“ Come! ” 


121 


responded to it in every generation, and claim that by 
their response they have achieved a great peace and a 
remarkable power—just that renewal of character 
which is summed up in the word “ rest.” Have you 
not known at least one such? And one genuine case 
outweighs all failures and all spurious imitations—be¬ 
cause it proves that, given sufficient genuineness, Christ 
can fulfil his great claim. 

The very fact that the invitation has lasted so long, 
that it has rung its challenge in the ear of every cen¬ 
tury, and is still confidently uttered today, is sufficient 
to prove that there is a Great Fact of Human Experi¬ 
ence supporting its truth. What then does it mean? 
How does the soul come to Christ? 

A Mental and Spiritual Coming 

One of the causes of difficulty in this matter is 
the tendency to confuse the material and the spiritual. 
The lawyer’s friend spoke as though “ coming to 
Christ ” were a matter of physical approach to him. 
Jesus of Nazareth seemed very far away. He does 
to us all at times. 

Dim tracts of time divide 

Those golden days from meT 

Thy voice comes strange o’er years of change; 

How can I follow Thee? 

But it should be obvious enough that when our 
Lord uttered the great invitation he was not asking 
the crowd to come nearer to him in physical sense. 



122 


God's Better Thing 


It was a “ mental ” or a “ spiritual ” coming he 
desired. 

And if that was his meaning when he stood before 
men in the flesh, still more must it be his meaning now 
that he is present only invisibly. Christians who by 
“ coming ” have discovered Christ real, and have ac¬ 
cepted his full teaching, believe him to be “ omnipres¬ 
ent,” an invisible companion of every soul, available 
for every life. The only way to arrive finally at that 
truth or conviction is to test it, to experiment with 
it, in other words, to accept the great invitation. 

It is best, however, to take one step at a time, and 
so far we are clear that it was a “ spiritual ” coming 
Jesus meant. He did not want that great multitude to 
follow him all over Palestine, leaving their livelihood 
and obstructing the traffic. He was after something 
much more vital and valuable than that. This 
“ coming ” is not to be measured by the foot-rule. 
You cannot be so many miles away from God. “ In 
him we live and move and have our being.” 

Spiritual Distance 

But have we any means of measuring or judging 
“spiritual” distance? Yes! We use a common 
means of judging it every day of our lives. Here is 
an illustration or two: 

What is the first order of the British Army? 
“ ’Shun! ”—short, rather too short, for “ Attention! ” 
Why does the sergeant roar that out on parade? For 
the simple reason that whilst Tommy is near enough 



“Come/” 


123 


to him physically, he may nevertheless be absent in 
reality. His body is there, his nicely shaven chin, his 
polished buttons, his rifle—but look at his eyes—there 
is only vacancy there. Tommy himself is still away 
back in the old village saying “ Good-bye ” all over 
again. “ Attention! ” roars the sergeant, and Tommy 
jumps into his skin, his soul appears on the spot, his 
will is attentive to command; Tommy really “ comes ” 
to the sergeant at last. 

You remember your school days, of course. How 
often you seemed to be in the schoolroom, yet in 
reality you were far away! There you were, neatly 
dressed, sitting at your desk, listening as good as gold 
(so it seemed) to your teacher. But really, you 
know, you were out in the playground, fighting over 
again that game of marbles, and winning this time! 
Suddenly a ruler descended upon your knuckles, and 
you “ came to ” your teacher in the only way that 
really matters. 

Now what did the sergeant want when he shouted, 
“Attention”? What did the teacher want? They 
each wanted a soul whom they could stamp with 
their own knowledge and feeling and purpose. They 
wanted your mind to accept their thought, your heart 
to pulse with their own emotion, your will to fulfil 
their purpose. It was not part of the man or boy they 
wanted, but the whole—mind to come to mind, heart 
to come to heart, will to come to will. 

So is it with Christ. There are many who come to 
him only partially. Some are intellectually interested 



124 


God's Better Thing 


only. They never allow the ideas of Jesus to lay hold 
really upon their lives. Religion is for them just an 
interesting problem—a celestial game of chess. It is 
possible to be a good theologian and a poor Christian. 
One is tempted to ask whether this has not been one of 
the historic blunders of the church. We have put 
ideas about Jesus in front of the ideas of Jesus. We 
have played mentally with theology rather than allow 
our motor energies to be captured and used by the 
ideas dear to the heart of our Lord. There are others 
for whom religion is mere emotion. They have come 
to Christ with their “ feelings ** only. They are 
thoughtless, unintelligent Christians, 

And evil is wrought for want of thought 

As well as want of heart. 

They can “ sit and sing themselves away to everlasting 
bliss ” while little children starve and strong men suffer 
wrong. Others yet again spend their life in the strug¬ 
gle of good and evil, doing, doing, feverishly, eagerly 
all the time. Yet they never seem to realize that Christ 
wants their personal love and fellowship. Thus they 
go to their splendid labors unsupported by communion 
with his tender spirit and mighty heart. 

The appeal of Jesus is to the rvhole man. He in¬ 
vites you to think as he thinks, to feel as he feels, about 
God, man, sin, life, death, all things, and to do the 
deeds that he would do if he were you and you were 
he. This is what it means to come to Christ. This is 
how you may know just how Christian you are. “If 



w Come!" 


125 


any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of 
his.” ” If a man keep my words, he it is that loveth 
me, and I will come unto him and make my abode with 
him.” 


Attention Discovers Reality 

This is the only way to discover the reality of 
Christ here and now. There is no word which so per¬ 
fectly satisfies the meaning of “ belief,” as used in the 
New Testament, as this word “ Attention! ” with all 
it suggests of the practical surrender of mind and heart 
and life. Attention is our great means of proving and 
appropriating reality. Attention draws out the reality 
of a thing. A book is only a meaningless arrange¬ 
ment of cloth and paper and typed signs until you 
“ attend ” to it, give yourself to it, read it. A trained 
botanist can detect in a flower a dozen realities to 
which the untrained eye is blind. Why? Because 
of the “ attention ” he has paid to it. He gave him¬ 
self to the flower, and the flower opened up, gave itself 
in return in its full reality, to him. 

So is it with the invisible Saviour of souls. When 
people tell me that Christ is not real for them, I always 
want to ask, how much real “ attention ” have you 
paid him? How much time have you given him? 
How much energy have you put into the search for 
him? Because that makes all the difference. “ If 
rvith all your hearts ye truly seek him, ye shall ever 
surely find him.” 

The Mind, and Heart, and Will—in other words, 



126 


Cod's Better Thing 


the Person—of our Lord Jesus Christ are available for 
you, in the pages of the New Testament, and in the 
unseen but ever-so-close world of spirit. 

Oh! sense-bound heart and blind! 

Is naught but what we see? 

Can time undo what once was true? 

Can we not follow Thee? 

Consider this! You must consider it! The possi¬ 
bility of adding Christ to your resources! That 
matchless Mind, that Perfectly Pure Heart, that 
Great Will—yours! Even the barest possibility of 
anything so sublime as a real union between you and 
the Son of God is worth investigation and experiment. 

Why not try at once the effect of belief? Is not 
your soul restless, dissatisfied, disappointed with your¬ 
self and the world? You know it is. Yet here is the 
challenge of Jesus. “ Come . . . and I will satisfy 
you.” What crass folly to ignore it, to give it up 
before you have really tried it! Why, years spent in 
such a trial would be wisdom compared with the 
insanity of neglect! 

In all other matters you do try to be so sensible, yet 
in this matter you are leaving a dazzling possibility, 
which a vast number of honest people claim to be a 
glorious certainty, untried, unexplored. If there is 
one person in human history who is, by the general con¬ 
sent of humanity, worthy of your trust, it is Jesus. He 
declares that he is available now for you. “ Lo, I am 
with you always, even unto the end,” he said. 



“Come/ 


127 


Will you not trust him still, and believe him well 
enough just to come, bending your thought and heart 
and will—your soul—to him in humble and full sur¬ 
render? Something mil happen if you do! It is the 
whole church of Christ that challenges you in that 
sentence from a vast experience. You will change, 
you will become more like Christ, sharing his “ rest ” 
of soul, his passion for humanity, his joyous service, 
and you will “ know '* with an immediate conviction 
his intense reality. Will you not say: 

Within my heart of hearts 
In nearest nearness be, 

Set up Thy throne within Thine own. 

Go, Lord! I follow Thee? 






PART II 


CONVICTION 





I 


THE SPIRITUAL MINISTRY OF NATURE 

The soul must indeed be dull who does not thrill at 
springtime to the glorious change from death to life 
which Nature everywhere presents. The little green 
shoots on the hedgerow, the coming of the fruit blos¬ 
som, the shy peeping of the flowers of the field, and 
the deepening sunshine over all; how can one live and 
ignore it all? The birds take on a more powerful 
song, as though they were calling us to sing with them. 
Life is everywhere assuming the aspects of love— 
beauty, light, and the passion for mating—and the 
world looks and sounds again like the fit product of 
a God of Love. For the seeing soul therefore this 
ever-recurring miracle is never a purely external event. 
The uprush of new life carries the soul too upon its 
tide, and yields more than a parable of resurrection, it 
becomes actually the quickener of a happier, freer, 
deeper, spiritual experience. As the springtime marks 
the rise of all earthly life to greet the sun, so it should 
also mark the rise of man’s spiritual self to greet the 
Sun of his soul. 

Limitations of Canon Greenfields 

Yet how often we find the new beauty of the world 
offered as an excuse for absence from church and 

131 


132 


God's Better Thing 


public worship. The soul, we are told, can worship 
God equally well, if not better, in the open air, than in 
the stuffy Bethel. The popular preacher of the lovely 
spring and summer months is undoubtedly “ Canon 
Greenfields,” just as “ Dean Fireside ” tends to 
monopolize, for such people, the popularity of the 
wintertime. “ Canon Greenfields,” however, has his 
limitations as a preacher. He is, for example, essen¬ 
tially a “ fair-weather ” prophet. His sermons are 
dry, or not at all. I doubt whether the worshipers of 
God through nature are more prepared to brave bad 
weather to worship at their favorite shrine, than are 
those who prefer to worship in the company of their 
fellows, and in the seclusion of a building. 

“ Worshiping God better ” in the open air than in 
the church all too often means nothing more than wor¬ 
shiping him more comfortably and, alas, sometimes 
not at all. 


The Worshipful Mind 

I wonder how many of the Sunday motorists and 
cyclists and pedestrians really worship God at 
Nature’s altar during their trips. They can do so 
perhaps, but do they? 

One would indeed welcome their passion for Na¬ 
ture and her spiritual ministry, if one could really feel 
that it was genuine, and not simply a glib excuse for 
avoiding a duty of public worship which growing lazi¬ 
ness and religious indifference have combined to render 
irksome. 



The Spiritual Ministry of Nature 


133 


For it is splendidly true that the field of flowers, the 
setting sun, the starlit night, the break of day, the noon 
landscape sunflooded, can, and do speak of the glory 
and presence of God to the mind that will reverently 
try to understand. Some men, indeed, like Byron and 
Shelley, would have been almost irreligious but for 
this spiritual ministry of Nature. What Wordsworth 
said of himself may be true for us all: 

I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused. 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean, and the living air. 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man . 

That last phrase, however, “ and in the mind of 
man,” is full of significance for those who would find 
God in nature. It is not enough merely to go to nature. 
A very great deal depends upon the mind you take 
with you. Every act of worship demands preparation 
of the mind and a certain temper or spirit in the mind 
if it is to issue successfully in life-giving communion 
with God. You will not find God in nature half so 
surely and distinctly unless you find him first within 
your own soul. The eye sees only what it carries the 
power of seeing; the mind finds only what it carries 
the power to find. 

This is why the mere Sunday pleasure-seeker can 
scarcely pretend to be a worshiper of God through 
nature. Consider the spirit in which he goes upon his 



134 


Cod's Better Thing 


trip, on pleasure chiefly bent, in a mood of self-indul¬ 
gence and self-regard. The sense of freedom, the 
fresh air and sunshine, the beauty everywhere, these 
all exercise a certain ministry, but it is a ministry 
strictly proportioned to the capacity and temper of his 
mind; and to the majority of his type, it is to be feared, 
this ministry goes little beyond increased health and a 
certain degree of physical and mental pleasure. Such 
a ministry has its value, but is deplorably inadequate 
for the spiritual need of man and far beneath what 
nature is capable of yielding when approached by a 
mind trained in worship and attuned to the Spirit 
Divine. 


Mind Seeking Mind 

After all, it is mind that we seek in nature, not a 
thing. It is mind, therefore, in ourselves that we must 
cultivate if we would find that Over-Mind. Nature, 
apart from thought and spirit, is like a lost wireless 
message, vibrating uselessly through space because the 
" receiver ” is absent. Consider the sunset, what is it 
in itself but a mere mechanism of so many vibrations of 
ether at such and such rates? The song of the birds, 
the bleat of the lambs, the plowboy’s whistle, are re¬ 
ducible to the same, just so many ether vibrations at a 
different rate of motion from the sunset. That is 
Nature in itself alone. A vast, complicated tangle of 
vibrations at varying rates of an intangible, invisible 
substance called, for want of a better word, ether. 
But now bring the receiver, the human mind, to these 



The Spiritual Ministry of Nature 135 


vibrations, especially the cultivated mind. What hap¬ 
pens? The one series becomes a blaze of glory, trans¬ 
mitting indescribable emotions to the human soul, and 
stirring unwonted aspirations and ideas, and we call 
it a sunset. The other becomes a wondrous harmony, 
beguiling the heart from its sorrow, interpreting joy 
and pain, lifting the soul to heaven, or casting it down 
to despair, and we call it music. 

The wonder evidently is not in the process outside. 
It is in the soul within. The wonder comes when the 
soul arrives. Outside there is vibration of one sub¬ 
stance, a vast monotony of method—inside, an idea, 
a feeling, an intelligible message, an interpretation. 
There lies the miracle. Nature is like a tube through 
which a mighty Mind is speaking, and which needs 
another mind at the other end if the message it con¬ 
veys is not to be lost. It is mind that matters most in 
the situation. “ Speak to the earth, and it shall teach 
thee.” Now, if this is so, it becomes obvious that it is 
the height of foolishness to begin with nature in our 
search for God. To do so is to ignore the instrument 
of search. It is like an astronomer trying to study the 
stars and ignoring the telescope. The condition of 
one’s soul is all important. For this reason there never 
has been a religion of nature pure and simple. Man 
has never been able to suppress the workings of his own 
mind and heart in the presence of nature. All nature 
religion has been inspired from within the soul. 
Deeper always, and more insistent than earthquake, 
wind, or fire, has been the “ still, small voice,” the in- 

K 



136 


God's Better Thing 


terpretation of nature by the indwelling Spirit of God. 
Christ’s interest in and harmony with nature springs 
from his religious convictions, not vice versa. The 
sanctuary, then, and the secret place of spiritual com¬ 
munion should come first in order of importance, so 
that when we go to nature, it may be with a mind and 
spirit prepared to gain from her all she has to give. 

It is not by any means, therefore, the man who 
avoids church who communes most fully with nature, 
and succeeds best in worshiping God through nature; 
it is rather just the person who is trained in a worship 
wherein there is a minimum of material aid and dis¬ 
traction, who, confronted with the innumerable beau¬ 
ties of a summer landscape, finds within himself a 
power of concentration and selection, and a capacity 
for absorption that the soul untrained in the spirit of 
worship and in religious thought does not, and cannot, 
possess. I do not mean that church attendance is an 
invariable and infallible help to the worship of God 
through nature, but I do mean that, rightly used, it 
should give an opportunity for that preparation of 
mind and heart that must be obtained if nature is to 
be understood. For, although the Psalmist said, 
“ The earth is full of Thy riches,” we must not forget 
the interpretation of riches that we have learned of 
Christ. True wealth, the wealth divine , is in the life 
and joys of the spirit, that Spirit who is in all and 
through all and over all. That Immanent One will 
not be fully found of those who are careless of his 
nearest Presence, who wander far afield to find Him 



The Spiritual Ministry of Nature 


137 


who is not far from any one of us. Whereas finding 
him first within, so far from losing interest in his 
other manifestations, we shall find them full of new 
and deeper interest, and a thousand times more intel¬ 
ligible. At least two great difficulties confront the 
man who proposes to do nothing but sit at the feet of 
nature. 

Difficulties of the Nature-worshiper 

In the first place, there is a strong tendency on the 
part of the soul who goes to nature without religious 
convictions and spiritual training, to lose the dignity 
and value of the inner world before the majesty and 
magnitude of the outer. 

The mere bulk of matter has almost inevitably upon 
the unprepared and unreflective soul the effect of 
dwarfing spiritual considerations, and rendering child¬ 
ish the conception of human value and dignity. Now, 
a due regard for the majesty and might of external 
nature may be healthy, in the sense of rebuking human 
arrogance and pride, but when it goes beyond that, 
and checks spiritual aspiration, and makes religion 
itself seem ridiculous and presumptuous, it is time 
to call a halt and to reflect. The exercise of thought 
soon leads to a very different conclusion, for as thought 
penetrates the veil of things as they are, it finds that the 
wonder of the world without pales before the still 
greater marvel of the world within. Thought finds it¬ 
self able, in the tiny compass of the mind, to grasp 
the immensities of space and manipulate them with 



138 


God's Better Thing 


comparative ease, measuring distances from planet to 
planet, and sun to sun, and slowly but surely tracing 
the plan of the heavens as well as of the earth. Nor 
is it only the mind of the astronomer that presents this 
greater wonder. The shepherd boy, lying on his back 
upon the hillside in the summer night, gazes up at the 
countless hosts of heaven, and his life and self seem 
hopelessly lost in the immensity of things, and amid the 
multitude of the stars. But what is the actual fact? 
The tens of thousands of vibrating beams of light 
which proceed from those twinkling points of heaven 
converge at the command of this shepherd lad upon 
the pupil of his eye; they cross each other without 
loss or confusion in a point that has no magnitude, they 
spread out again, space for space, in accurate fac¬ 
simile upon the retina of the eye, and there before the 
brain the whole expanse of heaven lies pictured. The 
immensely great is absorbed into the minutely small. 
But the wonder does not stay there; somehow the up 
till now purely mechanical effects resolve themselves 
into emotion and thought, and the soul of that shep¬ 
herd boy worships God in the wonder and glory of 
the night. 

Now, the boy does not realize all that, and to that 
extent the experience may be impoverished for him, 
but often the lad has reached the same truth in another 
Tvay. He remembers the prayer learned at his moth¬ 
er’s knee. The story of the Good Shepherd who laid 
down his life for the sheep, and of the heavenly 
Father who, though Creator of all heavenly marvels, 



The Spiritual Ministry of Nature 


139 


seeks to make a dwelling-place of the humble heart of 
youth. Thus, by another and quicker route, he en¬ 
ters into the glory of the heavens, and then indeed do 
the stars shine peculiarly for him, messengers of a 
Father’s love and care. But the material of the 
thought was already in his mind, he brought that to 
nature, he did not learn it from nature. 

Then in the second place, the man who goes to 
nature to learn of God finds nature speaking with equi¬ 
vocal voice. As Frank Boreham has reminded us, 
there are vipers as well as violets in nature. The smil¬ 
ing dame who rears the primroses and buttercups, and 
covers the hedge with blossom, pours down the pitiless 
torrent and avalanche, rives the mighty oak, and slays 
the strong man with lightning, consumes towns by 
earthquake, and plunges the liner to the depths of the 
sea. Will you turn from the God of the Bible to 
Nature because of the ugly facts of life, war, disease, 
sin, and death? But they are all in nature. You 
will worship God through nature, ah! but if so, you 
will go in the spring and summer days—not in the win¬ 
ter storms and snows. Canon Greenfields, as I have 
already pointed out, is a fair-weather prophet. And 
when you return, what will you say? What can you 
say as to the character of the Creator, and as to your 
own ultimate destiny? You must call in the aid of 
reflection, of thought, of science, of philosophy, of re¬ 
ligion. Philosophy will bid you perceive that winter 
snow and storm are for spring flower and summer 
fruit; but what can it tell you as to human destiny. 



140 


Cod's Better Thing 


seeing that in its enthusiasm for spring flowers and 
summer fruit the winter storm often makes such havoc 
of human life and joy? 

Nature’s True Interpreter 

Nature will bewilder you, unless first you sit at the 
feet of him who proved himself nature’s Master and 
Lord, and who declared: “ Let not your heart be trou¬ 
bled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my 
Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I 
would have told you.” When, however, through 
worship and prayer, that faith glows in your heart, go 
to nature again, and you will have leisure and heart 
to find beauty, even in the winter storms, and gain 
strength even from the piercing blast of the cold north 
wind. 

Turner’s pictures are very wonderful, and by study¬ 
ing them one can learn certain things about the painter. 
Yet if one had the choice of appreciating Turner 
only through his pictures, or of going with Turner to 
study his works after an opportunity of knowing the 
master artist , who would hesitate in choice? 

“ Whom ye ignorantly worship,” said Saint Paul 
to those great nature lovers and worshipers, the Athe¬ 
nians, “ Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare we 
unto you.” 

Go with God to nature. Worship him as personal 
before gazing on the mere works of his hand; draw 
near to his heart before gazing upon his vesture. The 
soul that will do this will find it true that 



The Spiritual Ministry of Nature 141 


Heaven above is softer blue. 

Earth around is sweeter green; 
Something lives in every hue, 
Christless eyes have never seen. 
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow. 
Flowers with fairer beauties shine. 
Since I know, as now I know, 

I am His, and He is mine. 



II 


IS GOD PERSONAL? 

How real is God to you? Is he as real as the per¬ 
son beside you? Or as the people you meet at home 
or at business? Is he as vivid in your experience as 
the material things that surround you ? Or is he simply 
a vague, shadowy, distant Being, in whom you have 
some kind of indefinite belief, but whose reality you 
do not “ feel ” with any great distinctness. “ A mere 
gaseous idol ” is the description a recent writer gives 
of the conception of God in many minds of today. 
The ancient peril of the race was an idolatry that made 
God into a local “ thing ” of wood or stone. The more 
modern peril is to spiritualize him into a vapor which 
is everything and everywhere in general, and nothing 
and nowhere in particular. This will not do. Our 
greatest immediate modern need is a new, vivid con¬ 
sciousness of God. 

This Jesus can give us, if we will follow him. How 
real God was for him! Not the disciples, nor the multi¬ 
tudes that thronged him, nor the Pharisees who op¬ 
posed him, were more vividly real to him than his 
Father in heaven. Jesus seldom used the word God. 
He never used those terms for God of which we are 
so fond, Judge, Lord, King of kings; the terms which 
set him above us and afar off in the aloofness of sov- 

142 


Is Cod Personal? 


143 


ereignty. Instead, he uses that supreme word, Father. 
Uses it repeatedly and insistently. A word which 
brings God right to one’s side, with his arm about 
one’s shoulders, and the love-light glinting in his eyes. 
So sure is Jesus that this is the truth about God, not 
only for himself, but for all men, that he assures us, 
“ The Father himself loveth you.” 

But many souls find it difficult in these days to be¬ 
lieve that assurance. They feel that the Christian 
view of God is all too domestic for so gigantic a uni¬ 
verse as we have discovered ours to be. Jesus called 
it “ my Father’s house,” but the term seems out of 
keeping with the abysmal spaces and myriad worlds 
that modern science has brought to light. The uni¬ 
verse is all too draughty to feel like our Father’s 
house. 

The apostles lived in a comparatively small world, 
of which the earth was the center of importance, the 
sun, moon, and stars being simply earth’s servants. 
Today we know that the earth is but one world amid 
a universe of greater worlds. We are told, for exam¬ 
ple, that if an express train traveling sixty miles an 
hour left the earth to reach the nearest star, it would 
take 40,000,000 years for it to arrive at its destina¬ 
tion. My Father’s house! Does it feel like it? As¬ 
tronomers used to think that Arcturus was but one 
star, later instruments have revealed it to be a gigantic 
cluster of hundreds of stars! 

Is it any wonder that one great astronomer turned 
from his telescope with the exclamation: “ That does 



144 


Cod's Better Thing 


away with a six-foot God! You can’t shake hands 
with the Creator of that! ” 

One wishes that the people of the churches were 
more alive and sympathetic to this type of difficulty, 
which is keeping thousands of the best-trained minds 
of our time aloof from our Christian faith. They are 
not affected supremely by argument, but by the atmos¬ 
phere created by such facts as these, the sheer over¬ 
whelming grandeur and bulk of the material universe. 
A more sympathetic attitude on our part to their posi¬ 
tion would at once test and strengthen our own faith 
and renew theirs. 

But what reply can we make to this apparent logic 
of facts? There are two things that can be said and 
proved which make a sufficient reply: 

1. If we do not think of God as personal, we are 
bound to think of him as something less. 

2. Personality is an adequate and worthy form for 
our thought of God. 

Personal or Less 

God must be personal, or he is something less. 

What do we mean by the term person? Simply a 
unity of three powers, the power of thinking, the power 
of feeling, and the power of willing or acting. And 
this is what we mean by the term person when applied 
to God. We mean that he thinks, and feels, and pur¬ 
poses or wills. This is what Jesus meant by using the 
term Father. God thinks toward us, and feels and 
wills toward us as a true human father would do, 



Is Cod Personal? 


145 


Now, surely it is evident that if we deny personality 
to God we deny him these powers of thought and feel¬ 
ing and will. Even if we do so in the interests of 
some so-called greater conception, we nevertheless suc¬ 
ceed in robbing him of intelligence and love and pur¬ 
pose. Either God is intelligent or he is not. The 
Christian has no sort of objection to any one saying 
that God is greater than personality as we know it, but 
what we insist upon as absolutely vital is that God 
must be at the least as intelligent and as loving and as 
purposeful as a man. 

The fact is, of course, that man has, strictly speak¬ 
ing, only two categories in which he can place God. 
He can think of God in terms of his own body, that 
is materially, as a Thing. Or he can think of God in 
terms of his own spirit, that is personally, as a soul, a 
mind, a feeling, a will. 

And the inevitable result of any refusal to ascribe 
personality to God is not to provide any greater idea— 
we haven’t one—but to fall insensibly, if not con¬ 
sciously, into a materialistic view of the Power behind 
creation. We have then our choice between calling 
God a Thing—soulless, mindless, without feeling or 
will; or calling him a Spirit, personal, Father! We 
are shut up to these alternatives. 

It is well to face them. The materialistic view of 
the Power that has made us needs only to be honestly 
faced to be seen to be absurd and impossible. Instead 
of yielding to the vague “ atmosphere ” that I have 
described, suppose we analyze its meaning. Suppose 



146 


Cod's Better Thing 


it is true that we are in the power of, not a personal 
Creator, but a Thing, blind, callous, going it knows 
not whither. 

In his “ Meaning of Faith,” to which the writer is 
indebted for much of the illustrative matter of this es¬ 
say, Dr. Harry Fosdick has an exceptionally strong 
and cutting bout with Dr. Ernst Haeckel, the champion 
of the materialistic science of our time, author of “ The 
Riddle of the Universe.” In one of his works Doctor 
Haeckel pooh-poohs the Apostles’ Creed and suggests 
that in place of ** I believe in God, the Father Al¬ 
mighty, Maker of heaven and earth,” he would sub¬ 
stitute, “ I believe in a chemical substance of a viscous 
character, mainly composed of albumen and water.” 
How would you like to repeat that solemnly every 
Sunday, in a temple dedicated to such a “ Chemical 
Substance ”? 

Doctor Fosdick tells us that a clever physician has 
suggested a short paraphrase of this first article of 
Doctor Haeckel’s creed, namely, “ I believe in Phos¬ 
phorus and Glue.” That is what it comes to. So 
that when we talk about loving one another, it is really 
the blind activities of Phosphorus and Glue we are 
talking about. You may think your wife loves you; 
you may think how beautiful it is that your little son 
should fling his arms about you, and say, “ I do love 
you, daddy! ” But neither of them can help it really; 
their part is all camouflage, the fundamental reality is 
only Phosphorus and Glue. 

You look at a beautiful picture. It suggests to you 



Is Cod Personal? 


147 


noble thought, elevated feeling, a soul aflame with 
artistic purpose, and it seems to appeal to something 
living in you, but in reality it is all “ phosphorus and 
glue ” in the picture and in you! 

A lad gives his life for his country. We call it 
sacrifice, patriotism, heroism. But these are mere 
words. There was no beautiful personal purpose in 
it. He was a mere mechanism of phosphorus and 
glue! How do you like it? Would you like peo¬ 
ple to think of you like that? Would you? 

What would you say if, picking up your daily 
paper, you came upon the sentence, “The paving- 
stones of Parliament Street have held a consultation, 
and have passed a resolution raising the income tax 
another shilling in the pound? ” Would you believe 
it? “ What nonsense is that? ” you would say. 

Yet, that is what the materialistic scientist would 
have you believe—that a chemical substance, mainly 
phosphorus and glue, thinks, and loves, and purposes. 
Is it likely? Don’t you think that it is rather more 
difficult to believe than that a Living Mind produced 
those paving-stones, these bodies of ours, and the 
minds that use them? 

Some one has said that this kind of belief, material¬ 
ism, is as though you attempted to explain the works 
of Shakespeare by analyzing them into the leaden type 
by which they were printed. No one would dream of 
taking such an explanation as adequate for Shake¬ 
speare’s works. Yet many would actually explain in 
the same way Shakespeare himself! 



148 


Cod's Better Thing 


But is it not evident that if people really believed 
the materialist, if the belief became at all general for 
society, love would perish for lack of meaning, mind 
would degenerate for lack of reverence, and man 
would himself cease to be a living soul, and become 
the thing he believed in? That is always his fate, he 
becomes always like the Cod he Worships. 

The best reply, then, that the Christian can make 
to the man who cannot believe that God is personal 
is to invite him to consider the consequences of really 
believing that God is without mind and feeling and 
purpose. 

What becomes, for example, of the difference be¬ 
tween right and wrong? If that difference is merely 
a human expedient, the opinion of the majority as to 
what is suitable conduct, then might is right. If I can 
only secure enough might I can make my right, how¬ 
ever wrong it may be, your right, and the right of 
society. That is the death of morality. Phosphorus 
and glue may work better in one way than another, but 
that is no adequate reason why I should follow that 
way, if it happens to clash with my comfort and self- 
interest. You see responsibility goes, if you eliminate 
mind and will. The fact is, you cannot get responsi¬ 
bility into a universe which has no responsible origin. 
Righteousness has no meaning in a world without a 
soul and without a guiding hand. 

“ How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God,” 
cries the psalmist. But what if it is only phosphorus 
and glue that he addresses? If that is so, there is No - 



Is Cod Personal? 


149 


one thinking of you and me; no one to guarantee our 
hopes and ideals against the triple alliance of death 
and sin and sorrow. We are waifs and strays, home¬ 
less and lost in a soulless universe of abysmal propor¬ 
tions, unknown vastnesses, and appalling forces. We 
are caught in a machine of being that grinds out of the 
dust mind and feeling and will only to grind them 
back into dust again. Do we believe it? A thousand 
times no! 

If we did we could not sleep o’ nights. In our deep¬ 
est soul we believe something very different, whatso¬ 
ever our mental professions may be. 

But why is it that whilst we shrink from endorsing 
the materialist’s creed, yet we are so slow to embrace 
without reserve and believe with all our hearts the only 
reasonable faith, “ The Father himself loveth you? ” 

Personality is Adequate 

The further point of the Christian reply to this ques¬ 
tion is that Personality is Adequate for our Thought 
of Cod. 

It is a frequent argument with skeptical rationalists 
that the ascription of personality to God fixes upon him 
limitations of an unworthy character. They make 
him, that is, less than he might be. They never tell 
us what is the superior category they would use, for 
the simple reason, that there isn’t one they can use. 
But this objection has been exploded philosophically 
long ago. So far from personality being a small and 
limiting thing whereby to judge God, it is the greatest 



150 


God's Better Thing 


of which we have any knowledge. Consider your 
mind. That wonderful power of thought! Can you 
set a limit to it? How far can it travel? Why, that 
express train, taking 40,000,000 years with its clumsy 
speed to reach the nearest star, has been easily out¬ 
distanced by human thought. We have flung the 
noose of knowledge round Arcturus and Jupiter, and 
measured the heavens in the span of our minds. How 
far back can your mind go? What countless memo¬ 
ries it holds. Is it really such a little thing, even at its 
poorest? Will you not bow in reverent awe before 
this mystic power of your own mind? Don’t you feel 
it true that your mind opens inwardly upon a vaster 
Mind? Peering into the depths of your own thought, 
are you not suddenly aware of Another whose name 
is Truth, and who is the very Law of your mind? 

Is the human heart a little thing? With its mighty 
gusts of passion, its illimitable patience, its undying 
power of loving. Why love, like thought, is an infi¬ 
nite thing. It is the great mainspring and multiplier of 
human life. 

Many a mother-heart has found its life multiplied 
during these years of war. Mothers have lived two 
lives, their own at home and their son’s away. The 
truly loving heart lives in all the lives it loves. The 
truly Christian heart lives in the life of the total race 
and of God. Such love always stirs our hearts with a 
sense of reverence and awe as at some Presence 
greater than human. Deep in every loving heart is 
the conviction that love is everlasting, undying to the 



Is Cod Personal? 


151 


ages of the ages. Open the door of your heart in¬ 
wardly—it opens upon the limitless Heart of God. 

Now if only we had the power of action wherever 
we think and love, we should be as like God as it is 
possible for the human mind to conceive. And even 
something of this is coming into our grasp. At one 
time we could act where we think and feel at a dis¬ 
tance only by the telegraph-wires. Well, we can do 
it now without wires; that is a beginning. Man’s 
royal power of action has been widening its sweep with 
amazing celerity during the last century. And in all 
he does he but discovers and obeys laws that a Greater 
Purpose than his has previously laid down in the 
nature of things. This door too, the door of will, 
opens upon God. We are made in the image of God. 

Man has no other key to God than his own nature; 
let him trust it. Its wonder is such that he well may 
do so. Never speak of the human personality as a 
little thing. If then we can feel this way about human 
personality, with all its imperfections, what may we 
not feel about Personality in its glorious perfection? 
For it is not imperfect personality but perfect person¬ 
ality the Christian ascribes to God. And as we have 
seen, it is no unworthy ascription. 

This is why, of course, God, when he came to men, 
came incarnate. He came to reveal himself as 
Thought, Feeling, and Will, as the great Companion 
of life 

Closer than breathing. 

Nearer than hands or feet. 



152 


God’s Better Thing 


Jesus is the truth about God. To believe that truth, 
to accept God as your Father, as simply, really per¬ 
sonal, as your best friend, that is to be saved. It is to 
be saved from self, for must you not think of him first? 
to be saved from sin, for dare you grieve Infinite Love? 
to be saved from death, for if he really cares, what is 
there to fear? 

Why not make the experiment of this grand belief? 
Let it warm your heart, and fire your hope. On the 
throne of all the worlds there is a Mind that thinks for 
you, a Heart that yearns for your happiness, a Will 
that plans and purposes your good destiny. Is that a 
possibility you can fail to investigate? 

Try the effect on your own soul of really believing 
Jesus when he says, “ The Father himself loveth you ,” 
and you will understand the rapture of the man who 
wrote: 

The Stars shine over the earth. 

The stars shine over the sea. 

The stars look up to God above, 

The stars look down on me. 

The stars may shine for a thousand years, 

A thousand years and a day. 

But God and I rvill live and love 
When the stars have passed an>ap. 



Ill 


GOD’S JOY AND GRIEF 

When Jesus was trying to explain to the Pharisees 
why he was so interested in publicans and outcasts— 
the despised sinners of the society of his day—he 
made the striking assertion that these people, despised 
of men, mattered supremely to Cod. Their misery 
and shame meant heartache to God, their repentance 
and restoration meant joy to him; therefore must Jesus 
seek them. “ There is joy in the presence of the angels 
of God over one sinner that repenteth.” 

Now a little contemplation will show what a won¬ 
derful and in some senses terrible truth we have here. 
Can there be any thought at once so solemn and so 
liberating for any soul as that God’s joy and grief lie 
in its keeping? By an awful act of condescension 
God has stooped from his throne and placed his heart 
in the hands of the tinest human child, in the hands 
of the vilest sinner, in the hands of the purest saint. 
Does not such a thought bring God near to us in a 
reality of the utmost intensity? The supreme thing 
for the soul who believes this truth must henceforth be 
so to think, to speak, to do, to be, that joy and not 
grief shall visit the Sacred Heart. 

In that wonderful parable of judgment, what is the 
one great shining truth which, in the view of Jesus, 

153 


154 


God's Better Thing 


determines human destiny? It is that God’s reality is 
so woven into that of his human children, he is so close 
to his wayward and suffering offspring, that to clothe 
the naked, to feed the hungry, to visit the imprisoned 
and the sick, is to relieve the Divine necessity. In 
other words, to deal rvith men is to have dealings rvith 
God! God could not be made more close or more 
real than that! 

But if this great truth is so prominent in the teach¬ 
ing of Jesus, why has it not more weight with us? 
Why do we not believe it? For it is evident that we 
do not believe it, or we should be very different from 
what we are; we should worry less and achieve a purer 
life; indeed; we should become what the first disciples 
were—God-intoxicated souls. 

I want, then, to deal with three reasons why we 
fail to appreciate this truth as we should. 

God Not Less than a Friend 

1. It Seems Presumptuous for Us to Believe It. 

The greatest of all truths—God’s personal inter¬ 
est in the individual soul—has been challenged, es¬ 
pecially in our day, on the ground of reverence, in the 
very name of that which is the soul of religion. No 
generation has been so fully informed of and so com¬ 
pletely awed by the vast splendors of creation as our 
own has been. The vast development of the physical 
sciences in the nineteenth century has placed our 
generation under the tyranny of the bulk and beauty 
of the material of the universe. We have measured 



Cod's /op and Crief 


155 


the heavens with a span, we have counted and named 
the stars. We know how small a thing is this planet 
we call earth, compared with the mighty suns that 
blaze in farthest space. 

And we are asked if we can seriously agree that the 
Creator of these vast worlds upon worlds, the Architect 
of all this stupendous and overwhelming greatness, can 
possibly be interested in the fate and feelings of each 
separate sentient creature which, compared with the 
bulk of matter in the universe, is as a speck of dust 
in the balance. We are asked to have a sense of pro¬ 
portion and of the fitness of things. God may have 
personal regard for the race, but scarcely for the in¬ 
dividual men and women and children. Be reverent! 
we are urged. Do not presume! God is too great 
to be bound up in the petty concerns of the individual 
soul. 

Our answer to this contention is that it makes God 
too small. Professing to laud his greatness, it sets a 
cruel limit to it. It cries unctuously: “ Behold how 
great is the Most High! Here is something he can¬ 
not do, and here is something he cannot be! ” Great 
enough to stretch out the heavens as a curtain, he can¬ 
not mark the sparrow’s fall! Mighty enough to create 
worlds, he may not listen to the cry of the fainting 
soul! 

Jesus has taught us of a greater God than that. His 
Father not only guides the stars in their courses, but 
also leads gently and safely the Iambs of his flock, 
knowing them each by name. His Father has hearing. 



156 


God’s Better Thing 


not only for the music of the spheres, but also for the 
prayers of the little lisping child. 

God is too great to be other than the personal friend 
of every human soul, and the greater its need and lack, 
the more pressing is his attention and friendship. 

If it be urged that it is unseemly and undignified for 
God’s joy and grief to be at the mercy of such crea¬ 
tures as men can be, that it makes God simply the chat¬ 
tel and sport of human decisions, we must reply that 
there is nothing more unseemly and undignified in that 
than every human parent experiences who permits him¬ 
self to love his children. When the soul chooses to 
love, it gives its happiness at once into the hand of 
another. Are we to refuse God his supreme virtue— 
his love for his creatures—on the score that by such a 
triumph of his grace he places his heart in the hands 
of men? We know what men have done with that 
gift. The pierced heart of Jesus tells us. But do we 
deem Jesus lacking in dignity or bereft of real power 
because he was crucified ? Do we not find in his love, 
perfect unto death, an imperishable glory, a conquer¬ 
ing power impossible of achievement to a God who is 
not Love? 

The loving worm within its clod 
Were better than a loveless God. 

God’s power is nowhere shown so perfect as in his 
daring to create a race of free beings on whom his 
love is set forever. 

We are just emerging from a very materialistic age, 



Cod's Joy and Grief 


157 


an age when men have been awed and frightened and 
obsessed by the vast amount and complicated structure 
of the material of the universe. Bulk has overpowered 
brain. Substance has stunned the soul. Yet the bulk 
would never have been seen or known but for the 
brain! The stupendous thing after all is not matter, 
but the mind that comprehends and weighs and 
measures and uses matter. Soul is the supreme fact; 
and the bigger the body of the universe, the more won¬ 
derful and sacred do those souls appear for the produc¬ 
tion and education of which such a universe was built. 

“ What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world and lose his soul? ” That is Christ’s estimate 
of the value of the individual. He is worth more than 
all the material world about him. 

Refuse to believe, then, that God does not care. 
Rather say with Browning: 

So the all-great were the all-loving too. 

And through the thunder comes a human voice. 
Saying, O Heart I made! a heart beats here . 

But a further difficulty we have is this: 

Christ Shows the Heart of God 

2. It is Exceedingly Difficult for our Imaginations 
to Grasp such Perfection of Sympathy. 

Just try to comprehend what this truth involves. It 
means that the Divine Heart is in simultaneous sym¬ 
pathy with all who are happy and all who are sad. 



158 


Go cl’s Better Thing 


That God is lifted up to joy by the thousands who 
daily repent, and cast down to sorrow by the thou¬ 
sands who daily harden their hearts in sin. What a 
chaos of conflicting emotions that great Heart must 
be! what a whirlpool of sensation! what a blend of 
joy and grief! How can we adequately and success¬ 
fully imagine such a Being? How can he become 
real to our limited minds? 

We can do so only by reaching up through the im¬ 
perfections of our humanity. This is why God came 
to us incarnate in Jesus. The Word was made flesh to 
assist our thought and feeling of God. 

And our imperfections do approach the divine per¬ 
fections. For example we know constantly what it is 
to combine varying emotions of joy and grief. 

Psychologists speak of the margin and the focus 
of the human mind. When you look at anything, the 
main object of your vision focuses your attention, but 
there is much else that is seen incidentally, and that is 
called the margin of your sight. It is a common ex¬ 
perience to have a joyful focus of mind and a painful 
margin, or a painful focus and a joyful margin. You 
may be at the present moment quite happy. Your 
loved ones are safe, the rent is paid, there is enough 
put by for any ordinary rainy day, you are in health 
and good spirits. That is the focus of the present 
moment, but darting into your mind from its hidden 
and mysterious margin there is a memory of a loved 
one who died, maybe, or who suffered worse than 
death—a descent into the ways of sin and shame. 



God's /op and Grief 


159 


Thus your consciousness is constantly harboring con¬ 
trary feelings and emotions. 

There is one particular experience we have all 
known which more perfectly illustrates this, namely, 
the experience of willing sacrifice. Here is a young 
shop assistant who out of his very slender earnings 
decides to give his old widowed mother a really good 
Christmas present. It means much pinching and 
scraping, a constant crucifixion of self-denial, facing 
the ridicule of spendthrift friends, a constant conscious¬ 
ness of friction and pain, but at the heart of all a well- 
spring of joy springing from the vision of the dear old 
mother faced by the present bought by her boy’s love 
and sacrifice. This blend of pain and joy mixed by 
the master-artist Love is the true elixir of happiness. 
The pain of sacrifice relieves the more sugary sweet¬ 
ness of the pleasure of life, and provides a wine of the 
soul which is the quintessence of eternal joy. Thus 
can the human soul blend in its own experience joy 
and grief and gain therefrom a purer happiness. And 
what the human heart imperfectly achieves the Divine 
Heart does perfectly. The Divine Heart amid the 
pain of crucifixion can cry exultantly, “ It is 
achieved! ” 

This much for our encouragement. We ought, 
however, to remember also that much of what is im¬ 
possible with us in our present finite condition may be 
possible with God in his infinitude. 

The difference between finiteness and infinity is the 
difference between the exhaustible and the inex- 



160 


God’s Better Thing 


haustible. For example, a loaf of bread will divide 
between a mother and her children and leave nothing 
over—it is all too easily exhaustible. Each child may 
have a piece, but no child has the whole. Compare 
the loaf of bread with the mother’s love. The love 
is an infinite thing, a spiritual thing, and each child 
has it ally and still there is enough for the husband to 
have it all too. There is room in the heart for a 
million million loves, for love is infinite, that is, in¬ 
exhaustible. 

Such a consideration should give us pause in saying 
that, because we find it difficult to sympathize perfectly 
with all the varied conditions which prevail in the 
humanity about us, it is therefore impossible for God 
to be any more perfect in his sympathies. We cannot 
but believe that if we can therefore approximate to 
“ perfect ” sympathy, God must be able fully to do 
so. 

“ Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
pitieth them that fear him.” 

Working Together with God 

There is, however, a third and a more practical 
reason why many of us doubt this supreme truth of 
God’s individual love and care, namely, 

3. There is the Fact of Sorrow. 

If God cares, we say, why doesn’t he put an end 
to trouble of every kind? Why does he permit any 
human soul to suffer? Like the child, we ask, “ Why 
doesn t God kill the devil and make everything all 



God's /op and Grief 


161 


right? ” We want an end put to evil. The pres¬ 
sure of our grief wears the edge of our faith in God. 

It is well for us to pause before this fact in careful 
self-examination. There may be in this impatience 
with suffering the noblest of concerns for the welfare 
of humanity. Jesus showed such impatience. He 
was forever fighting the miseries of men and turning 
their grief into joy. Yet he never invited his disciples 
to expect in following him a life free from trouble. 
Indeed, he told them to expect the reverse. “If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself and take 
up his cross.” 

The solemn fact is that in this impatience with sor¬ 
row there may be a verp ignoble concern for oneself; 
a desire to shirk the solemn responsibility that God’s 
gift of real life has laid upon each one of us. By his 
gift of free-will God has called every soul to cooperate 
with him in the perfecting of the world. If God killed 
the devil for us, how would our soul ever grow strong 
or win for itself any real virtue? If God ended all 
possible trouble for us or prevented it, what kind of a 
world would this be? Think of what your child 
would become if you shielded and guarded him con¬ 
tinually from the consequences of his own desires and 
actions. You would still need a cradle for him at his 
coming of age. Instead of rearing a man you would 
perpetuate a baby. 

So the answer to the question, “ Why does not God 
end trouble and put all that is wrong right? ” is simply 
that he is doing so as fast as his holiest and most loving 



162 


God’s Better Thing 


purpose will allow. To do it apart from men would 
be for Kim to undo his work of creating a perfect 
humanity strong in virtue, which is goodness freely 
chosen and habitually practised. 

If men will only respond to his seeking of them in 
Christ, and yield to him their all in fearless and faith¬ 
ful cooperation, evil will disappear from the world like 
mists before the sun. Whenever men have done so, 
evil has been defeated and destroyed. 

We may say then that what man cannot do with¬ 
out divine help, and what God will not and must not, 
because of his sacred purpose, do apart from human 
help, man and God together reconciled to each other 
in Jesus Christ, will triumphantly accomplish. 

Am I helping forward, or standing in the way, of 
that glorious consummation? Am I a believer or an 
unbeliever? Am I trusting God and working with 
him? Or am I failing to work with him because I 
hesitate to trust him? 

His joy and grief are in our hands. We may turn 
his grief to joy in the simplest way. “For there is 
joy in the presence of the angels of God over one 
sinner that repenteth.” 

We have brought Him much grief. Shall we not 
now bring him joy? 



IV 


THE POWER OF PERSONALITY 

What is influence? It may be defined as “ the 
power of making a difference.” And what power to 
make a difference the individual soul possesses! 
Scientists tell us that nature is a circle of cause and 
effect. The sun draws the vapor from the seas, the 
clouds store it, the winds waft it, it falls in showers on 
the thirsty earth, and runs swiftly back to the seas 
again, a circle of blessing. 

That is a picture of human society. The stream 
of influence from your life flows into the life next to 
yours and thence to others, and on and on till it has 
encircled humanity to meet you again one day at the 
judgment-bar of God, bearing the interest of the years. 
Life is a circle of blessing or of bane. Think of the 
blood-stream coursing round the body; if that stream 
is pure, the circle means life; but if the stream is 
poisoned, the very same circle spells death! Human 
society is such a circle. The influence of every per¬ 
sonality falls at last upon all humanity. 

Why the Difference? 

Personal influence is essentially the influence of an 
individual. Have you ever asked yourself, “ Why is 

163 


164 


God's Better Thing 


every one different from every other? ” God has 
made no two souls quite alike. Any “ doubling ” 
there may be is purely physical, and even that never 
perfect. Even twins can be distinguished by their 
mother, and they frequently quarrel with each other. 
Everybody is different from everybody else. Why 
this amazing variety? 

There can be but one reply. Because God wants 
an original contribution from every soul. Every soul 
is necessary to him, has its niche and place in his pur¬ 
pose and scheme. You may feel lost in the crowd, 
and think yourself very obscure, but God loves you 
and needs you as though “ you and he dwelt in the 
universe alone.” Let your heart leap to receive the 
“ good news,” that in the sight of God “ the very 
hairs of your head are numbered,” and you cannot be 
spared from his great eternal plan. God in Christ 
tells us of a love that “ will not let us go.” 

Have you found your bent—just the one thing God 
wants from you? All souls are specialists in the king¬ 
dom of God. 

Have you stood alone face to face with your God 
and realized the awful holiness of your own being 
because of the love he sets upon it? 

The Worth of a Soul 

Think of the parable of the lost sheep. The ninety- 
and-nine within the fold, but the fold still imperfect, 
and no resting-place for the Shepherd even till the one 
wandering sheep on the mountainside has been fol- 



The Power of Personality) 


165 


lowed and found and carried home! Can one soul 
mean so much? Does the happiness of all depend 
upon the decision of each separate one? Is heaven it¬ 
self lacking till the last soul comes home? Is it true 
that “ from the highest heights of glory to the deepest 
depths of woe ” the Shepherd of Souls has come seek¬ 
ing you? If so, what ineffable meaning your being 
has, and how responsible is the task of living! Your 
individuality is a sacred trust and must not lie fallow. 
Believe in it and follow its course fearlessly. Be not 
a mere echo, but a voice. Gain possession of your own 
soul. Grip your life with both hands and exert your 
influence. 

How much men lose because they just drift through 
life! Remember that no boat ever drifts up-stream. 

If it is up you wish to go. 

You must take the oars and row. 

Earnest action is imperative. Some people are so 
negative in their living. They are good, but are good 
for nothing very definite or purposeful. They remind 
one of automatic sweet machines—chock-full of 
goodies, but you have to drop a penny in the slot every 
time you want anything. They are like a well of 
crystal-cold water, but you have to drop a bucket for 
it every time if you want refreshment. Give me those 
other souls whose bread is freely cast upon the waters 
of life, whose influence is a river swiftly flowing to 
every point of need; souls that are volunteers in the 
ranks of goodness and do not wait to be conscripted. 



166 


God's Better Thing 


Unconscious Influence 

I am not contradicting what I have already said 
when I add that personal influence is at its height 
when we are least conscious of its exercise. The in¬ 
fluence of parents is at its height with their children 
when they are moving about their ordinary concerns 
beneath the eyes of their little ones. Here is father 
heavily displeased with his boys and talking pom¬ 
pously to them in the heavy style of “ Why don’t you 
do as I do! ” He thinks to himself, and it is written 
all over him, “ See what a good influence is mine! ” 
But Dick nudges Harry, and whispers, “ Isn’t dad 
putting it on! ” and the lecture runs off them like water 
from a duck’s back. Harry and Dick love to watch 
their father when he does not know they are looking 
and hearing. 

If you want to know what the children are really 
like, don’t visit the school on an inspection day. 
There they are, sitting bolt upright, perfectly good, 
but not really good, you know, just “ good for inspec¬ 
tion.” If you would see them as they really are, and 
find out the character of their real influence, turn them 
out into the playground and watch their play unseen 
by them. 


True Character 

The less consciously exerted the influence of another 
is the more we stamp it with reality, and the more 
power we give it with ourselves. Who ever judges 



The Power of Personality 


167 


another soul by its " window-dressing? ” We try to 
find out what is behind the “ window.” It is not what 
they elaborately try to show us, but what comes natu¬ 
rally and freely forth, that reveals the true character 
and makes the deepest impression. 

How, then, can these two facts be reconciled, 
namely that influence must be controlled, but must 
also be as little self-conscious as possible? The an¬ 
swer is to be found in the reenforcement of our per¬ 
sonal influence by the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Ceaselessly, whether we realize it or not, our lives 
are pouring out upon the world for good or ill. One 
asks oneself, “ How can I hope to be blessing rather 
than bane to my kind, knowing as I do the poverty of 
my mind, the uncleanness of my heart, the instability 
of my will? ” You look at your child and cry: 
“ How can I ever hope to rear you in the life that is 
pure and noble, that you may escape my errors and 
avoid my sins? However close a watch I set upon my 
lips or upon my deeds, how can I be sure that I shall 
put no stumbling-block in the way of those little feet 
that follow after mine? ” 

The Inspiration of the Soul 

There is but one answer. None of us can be sure 
who does not believe in that Other, himself perfect in 
wisdom, love, and power, who is willing to become the 
companion and inspiration of each separate soul. 
And this is the good news of Jesus Christ the Saviour 
who changes the hearts of men, so that out of them 
M 



168 


God’s Better Thing 


flows sweetness instead of bitterness, wisdom instead 
of error, light and not darkness. 

If I can believe that behind my puny mind is his 
perfect wisdom inspiring my thought and rewarding 
my struggles after knowledge, that behind my impure 
heart is his pure passion of love cleansing all my de¬ 
sires, that behind my wavering will is his almighty 
strength keeping me loyal to the light of conscience, 
then, though I may fail and fail from time to time, and 
even still make mistakes, I know that if I will but 
let him have his way with me, all over my life will 
extend his overruling might, and, rising from grace to 
grace and from glory to glory, I shall be able to say 
with increasing truth as the days go by: “I live, yet 
not I! Christ liveth in me! ** 

The extent of our responsibility may well sober us 
all. Bane or blessing to those we love dearer than 
our own life—to the world at large—which are we? 
In one way only we may make sure. By pledging 
ourselves with utter abandonment to Him who alone 
can govern the thoughts and desires and purposes of 
the soul. Make him the Lord of all the inner life, 
and the outer will be truly governed also. He will 
be the “ Guard of our unconscious hours ” in a deeper 
sense than that of the hymn. If the heart is truly pos¬ 
sessed by Christ, then the influence that “ happens ” as 
well as the influence that is “ exerted ” will be such 
that the other lives we meet cannot fail to be blessed 
as though by the presence of Christ himself. 



V 


THE KING WITH THE GOLDEN 
TOUCH 

There is no story that Nathaniel Hawthorne has 
told better than his version of the old Greek myth of 
King Midas. Having lost his soul to love of gold. 
King Midas was given the golden touch—the power 
to turn all to gold. He touches books—their wisdom 
is lost in gold; he touches flowers—their fragrance and 
varied beauty are lost in gold; he touches his little 
daughter Marigold—and she too turns to gold. Wis¬ 
dom, beauty, love fall before the all-consuming gold. 
It is a story whose moral is ever needed; the myth- 
maker knew life. 

The Gold of Character 

It is not of that moral, however, that I write. It 
is, instead, of the fact that, legendary though the story 
is, it is right in one great feature, there is a golden 
touch—a true golden touch. There is a power which 
can change the dross of human nature into the gold of 
divine character, the soul leprous with sin into the soul 
resplendent with shining purity, the dullest circum¬ 
stances into the brightest prospects. 

Very much is made in history of the power of touch. 

169 


170 


Go d’s Better Thing 


A whole world of mystic lore and symbolism gathers 
round it. The processes of anointing and of “ the 
laying on of hands ” point to the ancient belief that 
intrinsic power could be passed from individual to in¬ 
dividual by touch. The same idea is found in the pa¬ 
thetic superstition of the healing power of the royal 
touch. The King’s touch, as being of special benefit, 
was believed in, in England, as late as the reign of 
Queen Anne. Charles II and James II both touched 
many a sick person brought to them for healing, and 
without a doubt some recovered after it, if not because 
of it. 


The Touch of Jesus 

It is not surprising, therefore, that we find in the 
Gospel stories a marked emphasis upon the touch of 
Jesus. In several of his miracles Jesus makes physical 
contact with those he heals. Are we to believe then 
that physical touch is necessary for the conveyance of 
supernatural power and grace? I think not. The 
touch of Jesus was, like his laying hands on the heads 
of little children, an inevitable and natural expression 
of his great and tender good-will toward men. The 
only vital contact we can believe in is the contact of 
soul with soul—a spiritual touch. When a man shakes 
your hand, it is not the physical contact that matters— 
it is the spirit behind it, controlling it, stamping its 
own character upon it, and it is only that spiritual con¬ 
tact which gives you the key to the exact significance 
of the physical touch. 



The King with the Golden Touch 


171 


The Royal Will 

Remember the leper whom Jesus touched. “ Jesus 
put forth his hand and touched him. And immediately 
his leprosy was cleansed.” That leper was in the 
deepest abyss of misery conceivable. Outcast from 
kith and kin and human society, he was utterly alone 
in his affliction. Wherever he went he must warn 
people away from contact with him, crying, “ Un¬ 
clean! Unclean! ” To touch such a one was strictly 
forbidden by the law, and was viewed by all with 
horror, disgust, and loathing. Yet Jesus, sinless, stain¬ 
less, the perfect vehicle of life and divine power, is 
moved with compassion, enters fully into the man’s 
condition, and gives free and natural expression to his 
love. He bridges the gulf between the world of health 
and this man of sin and shame and touches him. Was 
the healing in the touch of flesh upon flesh? Surely it 
was in that royal will, that flame of love, that passion 
to bless behind the touch of the hand. 

And thus the story becomes a great symbol of the 
work of Jesus everywhere, of his ministry to every 
generation. He has the golden touch. He lives to 
touch men and to bless them in the touching. 

Hidden Gold 

And all through his ministry, and all through the 
centuries succeeding, Jesus has been touching the sin¬ 
ning, suffering souls of men and women with a touch 
that calls into being and brings to the light all the 



172 


Cod's Better Thing 


buried hidden gold of goodness. There was a woman 
so evil in life and nature that people said she was pos¬ 
sessed of seven devils. Jesus touched her, and Mary 
Magdalene became a saint whose pure devotion to her 
Lord is a proverb. A man named Peter was con¬ 
victed of base treachery and meanest cowardice. 
Jesus waylaid him on the shore of the Galilean sea, and 
by renewed contact changed him into the boldest of 
his band. 

A man named Saul was consenting to the death of 
Christ’s followers and hunting them to the slaughter. 
Jesus arrested him on the Damascus road, and Paul 
the apostle began hunting for Christians in a very dif¬ 
ferent sense, resting neither day nor night in his pas¬ 
sion for bringing all mankind under the golden touch 
of Jesus. 

There was a swearing tinker of Bedford whom 
Jesus touched and transformed into the Immortal 
Dreamer, the writer of the most widely circulated and 
most saving book, except the Bible, in all literature. 

There was a worthy, rather formal Church of 
England minister whom Jesus touched, with the amaz¬ 
ing result that he broke away from church buildings 
and preached to the people in the fields and under the 
hedgerows, till the name of John Wesley and the 
sound of his gospel were in the ears of every English¬ 
man. 

And so one might go on. As numberless as the 
sands upon the seashore is that multitude of souls that 
Jesus has touched with a golden touch, turning the 



The King with the Golden Touch 


173 


very dross of humankind into the pure gold of divine 
character. 

The Sleeping Beauty 

We have all of us been charmed at some time in our 
life by the story of the Sleeping Beauty, awakened to 
life and happiness by the kiss of the heroic Prince. 
Little did we think of the true depth of meaning in 
that parable of our childhood. In every one of us is 
that Sleeping Beauty, that Bride of Christ whose 
heavenly splendor none can bring forth to life and 
light except Jesus, the Prince of Life, the King with 
the Golden Touch. 

No less wonderful than his influence upon persons 
is the transforming power of the touch of Jesus upon 
circumstances. The most sordid surroundings reveal 
aspects of unrealized beauty and brightness under his 
touch. The supreme instance of this is, of course, 
the Cross. It was the symbol of utter shame, hopeless 
torture, and cruel hate when Jesus found it. He 
touched it, and lo! it became evermore sacred and 
beautiful, a perpetual symbol of the highest glory and 
the greatest love. 

And what Jesus did for his own Cross he is ever 
striving to do for yours and mine. He has done the 
same for a great host of his suffering servants. 

A Land of Light 

Does not Livingstone tell us that the one thing which 
made the loneliness and darkness of his life in Africa 



174 


Cod's Better Thing 


tolerable for him was the remembrance of Christ’s 
promise, “ Lo! I am with you alway.” The touch of 
Jesus changed the Dark Continent into a land of light. 

When a search-party was looking for the lost ex¬ 
pedition of Sir John Franklin and his men, they came 
upon a boat full only of skeletons, telling all too elo¬ 
quently how the brave men had died. But at the bot¬ 
tom of the boat a Bible lay open at Psalm 139 and 
marked at verses 9 and 10: “If I take the wings of 
the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
even there shall Thy hand lead me, and thy right hand 
shall hold me.” The divine touch had turned all their 
darkness and hopelessness to golden promise. 

Sharing the Touch 

You have your cross, my friend, so hopeless and 
dark and mysterious! Why it ever came you cannot 
tell, and you shrink from it with bitterness and fear. 
Let Jesus touch it, let him bear it with you; and a 
strange light will break forth from its murky depths, 
and flashes of reason will play through and through its 
mystery, and all its leaden gloom will be changed to 
golden brightness. Jesus has a golden touch. 

And what is more, we may share that golden 
touch. 

Jesus makes a gift of his power. It is his purpose, 
his plan to share it. He touches one in order that he 
may touch another. Think of Peter: “Silver and 
gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee. 
In the name of Jesus of Nazareth I say unto thee, 



The King with the Golden Touch 


175 


rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand 
and lifted him up.” That is the kind of thing that 
has been going on for centuries, too. By one arrested 
soul Jesus reaches a thousand more. 

A Gift Indeed 

And what a gift to possess! Always to bring out 
the best in people, never the worst! Always to light 
up the possibilities of a given set of circumstances, 
never their limitations! Always to exert a divine 
magnetism which draws the hidden goodness of souls 
to the surface and attaches the life to God! Ah! that 
is a gift indeed. 

Yet many have possessed it. The strength of the 
true Christian in every generation has been that in His 
presence men have found their lives “ touched to 
nobler issues they have found it impossible to speak 
the mean word, to do the mean deed, they have felt 
obliged to be their best and live for once up to their 
ideals. 

A Pathetic Story 

Frank Boreham reminds us in one of his essays of 
that pathetic story in Oliver Twist of the touch of 
Rose Maylie, in the sweetness of her pure girlhood, 
upon the soiled, warped soul of Nancy. Nancy burst 
into tears: “ Oh! lady, lady,” she cried, clasping her 
hands passionately before her face, “ if there were 
more like you, there would be fewer like me, there 
would, there would! ” 



176 


Cod's Better Thing 


It was the magic touch of pure love revealing the 
hidden gold beneath the dross. 

Aloofness from men is the last thing we should ex¬ 
pect to find in Christian men and women. Exclusive¬ 
ness, that baneful practise of the society of the world 
which sets living souls in iron rings of caste and knows 
not how to bridge the gulf between the lower and the 
higher—that kind of thing is utterly alien to the spirit 
of Jesus. Jesus sought, ay, and seeks, contact. He 
wants to get into touch. If you give him your hand, 
the first thing he will do with it will be to place it in 
the hand of a less fortunate brother man. 

A Good Woman 

Do you remember Elizabeth Browning’s beautiful 
description of a good woman? 

She never found fault with you. 

Never implied your wrong by her right: 

Yet men at her side grew nobler—girls purer; 

None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall: 

They knelt more to God than they used—that was all. 

That is the Christian. Emanating a subtle virtue— 
radiating perfect life—touching only to heal and bless 
and inspire, because dwelling always under the hand 
of Jesus, the King with the Golden Touch. A church 
of such Christians could not fail to rally, at last, the 
whole world to the service of that One who declared, 
“ I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” 



The King with the Golden Touch 


177 


The Living Christ 

But to share this wonderful gift, to obtain this 
golden touch, we must come under the hand of the 
living Christ. We must submit our case to him and 
seek at his hand cleansing, healing, transformation. 
Only the quickened soul can quicken—only the mag¬ 
netized soul can draw. And Jesus himself said, 
“ Whosoever cometh unto me I will in no wise cast 
out.” Have you come under the golden touch of 
Jesus? 

In an American colliery on a certain Sunday the 
man in charge, who was quite alone, suddenly thought 
the mine was on fire. A cyclone had burst over the 
district, causing intense heat. Taking fright badly, he 
managed to reach the mouth of the shaft that would 
take him up to the surface. The cage was lowered 
and drawn up, but fear had so paralyzed the man 
that he could not step into the cage. There was the 
current of power running that would save his life if he 
would trust himself to it. But the simple act of trust 
was not at his command; he was withheld from it by 
sheer fear, and by that alone. 

Splendor and Power 

What a picture that of many a soul distraught with 
this fear and that! Yet all the time Christ stands 
waiting, waiting to touch and lift these souls to splen¬ 
dor and to power. Trust the golden touch of Jesus, 
and come under his hand. 



178 


Cod's Better Thing 


In his hand we are safe, we falter on 
Through storm and mire; 

Above, beside, around us there is One 
Will never tire. 

What though we fall, and bruised and wounded lie. 
Our lips in dust, 

God’s arm shall lift us up to victory, 

In him we trust. 

For neither life nor death, nor things below. 

Nor things above. 

Can ever sever us, that we should go 
From his great love. 



VI 


“ WHAT IS THE ESSENTIAL CHRIS¬ 
TIAN BELIEF? ” 

The relation of theology to religion is the relation 
of theory to fact. Religion is a fact; broadly, it is the 
fact of communion between the soul and God. The¬ 
ology is the endeavor of the mind, inspired and guided 
by the Holy Spirit, to interpret this fact. 

Creeds No Cement for Souls 

Now it is quite evident, surely, that we are not 
saved by theology. For the simple reason that within 
the one saving religion we have so many differing 
theologies. Who is right, the Plymouth Brother or 
the High Anglican, the Congregationalist or the Strict 
Baptist, the Christadelphian or the Roman Catholic? 
Yet have we not known men of all these differing 
points of theological view, about all of whom one thing 
was evidently the same—their saving knowledge of the 
Lord Jesus Christ? 

Do we mean then by this that theology is negligi¬ 
ble? Not in the least. All things are important in 
their proper place and only there are they important, 
and there they are all important, nothing else can sub- 
stitue for them. Our contention simply is that when 

179 


180 


God's Better Thing 


theology is treated as the most vital thing in the joining 
of or the unity of a church, it is being exalted unduly 
—there is something much more important and primary 
and fundamental. 

Theology is not a satisfactory basis of union, es¬ 
pecially in an age of wide-spread education and new 
knowledge like our own. Minds are too diverse and 
independent, and discovery and thought are moving 
too rapidly for the use of hard and fast-set creeds of 
belief, which are to be equally binding on every soul. 
The foundation of Christian union is the one founda¬ 
tion, namely, Jesus Christ our Lord. It is personal. 
It is the foundation of his Spirit, possessing all the 
hearts of his people, and giving them patience and 
tolerance of one another’s views and efforts. That 
church surely presents the spectacle of greatest triumph 
for the Spirit of Christ where men of the most diverse 
views can meet in real fellowship, and in a perfect 
spirit of love wrestle mentally with one another, that 
all may advance along the highway of Truth. 

Trust in a Person 

Paul, in his great words to the Philippian jailer, 
“ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved,” expresses very simply and clearly the one es¬ 
sential Christian belief. We cannot imagine that the 
Philippian jailer knew very much theology. The 
Epistle to the Romans was not then written, the New 
Testament was not yet in existence. The Old Testa¬ 
ment even would scarcely be known to a Gentile jailer. 



“ What Is the Essential Christian Belief? ” 181 


It is almost certain that the story of the Virgin Birth 
was not yet current in Christian circles. By this word, 
Paul could not mean, “ Believe this and that doctrine 
concerning Jesus.” How can a man honestly and 
actually believe a doctrine without careful investiga¬ 
tion, needing much more time than this jailer had. 
This man comes to saving faith quickly. Almost at 
a blow. It is true Paul spoke the word of the Lord 
to him and his house. What was this word concerning 
the Lord which stood in the forefront of Paul’s teach¬ 
ing? It was the fact of the resurrection, which was 
the main purport of all Paul’s preaching in the Acts 
of the Apostles. This was the truth that stood in the 
forefront of all the apostolic preaching. Jesus lives! 
That was their great word. Behind that supreme 
fact, of course, lay all that Jesus had done for their 
souls—the effects of his teaching, of his example of 
sinless manhood, of his atoning death, of his gifts of 
pardon and of power, but into all that sublime wealth 
of spiritual experience there was only one way—the 
True and Living way —trust in this living, personal 
Saviour and Friend, Jesus Christ. 

We see then at once what this saving belief is. It 
is just the kind of thing that happens in every real 
human friendship. In some way a man is introduced 
to you, and you make acquaintance with him. You 
have reason to believe (such influence has he had on 
other men) that his friendship is to be highly valued. 
But he can never be truly your friend and do all he 
is capable of doing, he can never fully open up the 



182 


God’s Better Thing 


treasures of his heart and mind and life, unless you 
open to him your heart and mind and life in a real 
and confident trust. Of course, there must be this 
“ opening up ” of the personal self upon both sides if 
friendship is to become real and valuable. 

This act of humble and self-abandoning “ trust ” 
in Christ as a living personal Saviour and Friend, is the 
one essential Christian belief. 

The Heart Helps the Head 

To put it in an old-fashioned way, the one thing 
that matters is to give one’s heart to Christ. 

That is the meaning of “ belief ” in this verse, and 
elsewhere in the New Testament. 

It is not therefore primarily intellectual—though 
it is well always to remember that intellectual difficul¬ 
ties may in some cases stand in the way of its full 
achievement. It is not first of all a trust even in what 
Christ has done, or in any doctrines about Jesus, 
All that comes later and comes irresistibly if this first 
thing is achieved, namely a surrender of the whole 
personal self to Jesus Christ himself. 

In no other way can one explain the triumphs of 
salvation achieved by the gospel in all generations in 
the case of the ignorant and unlearned, especially in 
the case of the slaves and the poor of those first Chris¬ 
tian centuries when there was literally no theology, no 
systematized body of Christian doctrine but simply a 
fact, sublime in its beauty and power, the fact that 
Jesus of Galilee and Calvary, the evident Son of God, 



“ What Is the Essential Christian Belief? ” 183 


had been manifested in the glory and power of a Risen 
Life, and had proved himself the Saviour of certain 
men, his apostles. 

What he had done and was still evidently doing 
for them, he could do for all who would come to 
him. That was, and that still is, the simple gospel. 

And when by faith we thus possess Christ, we pos¬ 
sess all he is, and all the efficacy of what he has done. 

I have said that the apostles put the resurrection into 
the foreground of their preaching. But into the fore¬ 
ground of his theology Paul puts the atonement. 
When he dwells as a “ teacher ” amongst the Corin¬ 
thian Christians he is determined to know only Christ 
and him crucified. 

There are those who complain that the pulpit does 
not preach often enough the Cross of the Lord Jesus. 
They do not realize how for many the Cross has no 
meaning till Christ is known. 

He is the great, the saving possession. He brings 
his Cross, with all its mystic saving efficacy, with him. 
Those who possess him possess his cleansing blood, 
and there is no other way of possessing it. 

As Saint John says, “ // we walk in the light as he 
is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin.” 

It is so fatally easy to subscribe intellectually to be¬ 
liefs and doctrines about Jesus and to miss his Spirit, 
and that is to miss salvation. It is terribly possible 
for a man to say, “ The cross tells me that Jesus died 
for my sins,” and resting carelessly in that reiteration 

N 



184 


God’s Better Thing 


lose all interest in being good and in the manifesting 
of that living Saviour who died that he might live 
in us. 

Look at that cross upon Calvary! See the people 
standing by it! They have all “ come to the cross,” 
but how differently! Some, not knowing Jesus, have 
come to the cross in a way that condemns them to a 
deeper stain of sin. The Pharisees and priests “ come 
to the cross,” but are they saved? They are utter 
strangers to Him who hangs therefrom, and the cross 
is barren for them. But Mary the Mother of Jesus is 
there, Mary Magdalene, from whom he cast forth 
seven devils is there, John, the disciple whom he loved, 
is there. For them the Divine Man is all, but for that 
verp reason he will now ever be to them the Crucified, 
the One great Atoning Sacrifice. They can never 
forget his wounds. 

Your Own Theology 

Similarly, the soul that has established its own per¬ 
sonal relation to Christ has the Divine Guide himself, 
who will lead the soul into all Truth. My friend, 
make your own theology. It is the only theology that 
you can ever truly call yours. Thoughts even of 
Christ and God are not yours till pou think them and 
have struggled to understand them. Do not ignore 
what the church teaches, what past ages have thought, 
what the Word of God reveals; but ever remember 
that there is One waiting there beside you, just within 
the shadow of the unseen, who seeks to be the per- 



“ What Is the Essential Christian Belief? ” 185 


sonal Leader and Teacher of every soul, not into a 
part, but into all the truth. Once you know him 
with saving knowledge, then it is simply a question of 
enough time and enough thought and enough oppor¬ 
tunity as to when you may call yourself “ a theolo¬ 
gian.” But to know him you must trust yourself to 
him, you must believe in him. 

Let us return again to Saint Paul and the jailer. The 
apostle makes this demand for faith because he knows 
Christ’s saving grace in his own soul and life. And 
that saving grace was very evident to the jailer in this 
experience. He knew that these men had come to the 
town preaching a new God. He finds them men of 
strange behavior —singing in a prison. They pos¬ 
sess a courage and a force of character that is novel 
to him. The earthquake that releases them would be 
construed by this jailer as the act of the new God, and 
doubtless, as in all such calamities, the memory of 
his sins would fasten itself upon him anew. Paul’s 
chivalrous behavior and concern for him would touch 
his heart. 

The Steps of Salvation 

We can mark then the steps of salvation here. 
First, the witness of Christ to himself through the char¬ 
acter and conduct of his friends arresting the man’s 
attention, shaming him into a sense of deeper moral 
need, and awakening his interest in the new Saviour. 
Then his sharp cry for light. Then Paul’s reply. He 
would understand Paul’s earnest invitation to “ be- 



186 


God’s Better Thing 


lieve ” to mean: “ He who saves us can save you. He 
lives! He is as near to you as to us, you have only to 
open your soul and let him in. Trust him, and fling 
open your heart’s door to him. Begin to live, believ¬ 
ing him to be with you—looking to him moment by 
moment for strength, for light, for peace, for his com¬ 
mands, and the Saviour will save you too and become 
so real in your heart and life that those about you will 
be drawn into this same holy and redeeming friend¬ 
ship. Thou shalt be saved and thy house." 

Doubtless the jailer’s first question to Paul was: 
“ Who is Jesus Christ? What is he? Is he a power¬ 
ful God or the supreme God? Tell me all you can 
about him.” And the first thing Paul would tell him 
would doubtless be the story of the journey to Damas¬ 
cus and the personal revelation of Jesus that he 
himself had enjoyed. Then the story of the other 
apostles and their association with Jesus through the 
Galilean ministry, through the tragedy of Calvary, to 
the joy of Easter Day and the Power of Pentecost. 
A story of facts rather than an array of doctrines— 
the burden of the whole story being Jesus, the Son of 
God, lives and can save you. 

And this is the only power strong enough to save 
a soul. Not a doctrine, a text, a cold form of words, 
not an intellectual proposition, not a scheme of mystic 
forces, but a Person warm, living, and loving, as real as 
the person sitting beside you. A Person possessed of 
all authority and might, especially the supreme author¬ 
ity and might of an infinitely faithful and tender love. 



“ What Is the Essential Christian Belief? 99 187 


Only a soul so related to Christ that it is utterly 
given up to him in heart and mind and will, can be 
called truly “ saved.” To be saved is to be “ safe ” 
in all senses. Safe in your true interests, safe to your 
neighbors, safe to your own good, safe to God’s pur¬ 
poses. And this can only be through a personal 
Saviour. 

John Oxenham’s beautiful poem “ Credo ” puts 
this truth in immortal words: 

Not what, but Whom I do believe, 

That in my darkest hour of need 
Hath comfort that no mortal creed 
To mortal man may give: 

Not what but Whom! 

For Christ is more than all the creeds, 

And His full life of gentle deeds 
Shall all the creeds outlive. 

Not what I do believe, but Whom! 

IVho walks beside me in the gloom? 

Who shares the burden wearisome? 

Who all the dim way doth illume. 

And bids us look beyond the tomb, 

The larger life to live? 

Not what I do believe. 

But Whom! 

Not what. 

But Whom! 



VII 


THE GUARDIAN OF THE GATE 

There is nothing that brings true mysticism into such 
disrepute as the insistence upon a mysterious interpre¬ 
tation in matters of religion where an obviously simple 
one is possible and apt. Religion of course must ever 
possess its mystery since God is Infinite, but also the 
devout soul will always be growing in the knowledge 
of the Infinite. It is indeed our bounden duty to be 
ever extending the frontier of understanding into the 
“ no man’s land ” of mystery. 

A striking illustration of this undue mysticism in 
interpretation is provided by the treatment meted out 
to Christ’s famous saying concerning the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven! “ Thou art Peter, and upon this 
rock I will build my church . . . and I will give unto 
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatso¬ 
ever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be 
loosed in heaven.” 

Here Jesus is conferring upon some one a truly aw¬ 
ful power, sublime in its possibilities of good, heart¬ 
shaking in the magnitude of its responsibility. In 
somebody’s custody lie the keys of that kingdom of 
light and love and divine treasure, for which all hu¬ 
manity yearns. Some privileged person or persons 
188 


The Guardian of the Gate 


189 


guard the gateway to the Perfect Social Order, the 
reign of God on earth. Who is it? 

Saint or Saints 

Rome answers, “ Saint Peter, to whom these words 
were uttered, and his successors—those connected un- 
brokenly with him through the physical contact of 
the laying on of hands.” We are all familiar with the 
idea—used too often jocularly—of Saint Peter as the 
warden of the gate of heaven. The objection to this 
interpretation is not so much that the power is thus 
conferred on certain men—the power in the present 
writer’s view is for any who can successfully claim it— 
but that it should be viewed as given exclusively to 
these men. There are at least three overwhelming 
objections to such an interpretation: 

1. It is contradicted by experience. It limits to a 
certain order of men the power of opening, not the 
church , but the kingdom of God to their fellows. 
But this power has been wielded by many outside the 
order recognized by Rome. Will any one in these 
days deny that John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, F. W. 
Robertson, D. L. Moody, had the power to bring men 
into the kingdom of God? 

2. It implies a unique sanctity in Saint Peter where¬ 
as the context shows him falling speedily under the 
heavy displeasure of Jesus. No one can deny that 
Peter became a great saint, but that he was the recipi¬ 
ent of peculiar and exclusive grace at this point is not 
at all apparent. “ Thou savorest not the things that 



190 


Cod's Better Thing 


be of God, but the things that be of men.” “ Before 
the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” 

3. The parallel passage in Saint John in which 
Jesus speaks of the power to bind and loose is ad¬ 
dressed not to Peter, not even to the twelve apostles 
merely, but to the general company of disciples gath¬ 
ered in the upper room. 

Protestantism has generally asserted that “ the 
rock ” to which Jesus refers is the confession of Saint 
Peter, but unfortunately this looks too much like spe¬ 
cial pleading, and it reflects Protestantism’s general 
lack of imagination. What becomes of the play on 
the word “ rock ” if Peter is not primarily meant. It 
is Peter who is addressed, but not Peter as excluding 
others but as a type. This makes all the difference. 
It is Peter, as an individual soul testifying to the over¬ 
whelming beauty and power of Christ, acclaiming his 
Saviourhood, witnessing to the gospel, whom Christ 
hails as the rock-foundation of his church, and to 
whom he gives the power of the keys. But wherever 
that state of soul is found, in Peter, or John, in Jones 
or Smith, in Joseph Parker or Bishop Crowther, there, 
fashioned out of the rock of conviction, is the church 
of Christ, and there, using the mighty key of witness, 
is the power of turning men unto God. 

The Keeper of the Keys 

We see then clearly at last who it is that is called 
upon to bear this grave responsibility. It is none other 
than the true church of Christ on earth, each several 



The Guardian of the Gate 


191 


member coming into possession of this power accord¬ 
ing to the intensity of his or her conviction and the 
faithfulness of his or her witness. And is it not exhila¬ 
rating to realize the sublime confidence in his true 
church which this statement reflects on the part of 
Jesus? Is it not thrilling to feel that the key—the key 
to that kingdom divine for which the hearts of all in 
their secret depths are yearning—is here to our hand? 
It is no uncommon experience for men to stand baffled, 
defeated, before a closed door, because the key is not 
forthcoming. Suddenly there goes up a shout: “ The 
key is here! the key is found! Now we go in! we go 
in! ” According to our Lord there is no room for 
doubt but that the church will, ultimately, be faithful 
to her trust. He does not anticipate failure forever 
on her part. Clear-eyed as he is concerning the faults 
and failings of his disciples, he nevertheless asserts the 
invincibility of the church. “ The gates of death and 
hell shall not prevail against it.” In these days of a 
wide-spread consciousness of the church’s failure it is 
well now and again to remind ourselves of this high 
faith of Christ’s in the ultimate honor and triumph of 
his disciples. 

Here then is the great simple meaning of this sup¬ 
posedly mysterious saying of our Lord’s. It is the 
strongest possible statement of the responsibility of 
every Christian disciple and of the church for such a 
witness to Christ as shall, by the conviction it brings 
to men, open to them the gateway of the Eternal 
Kingdom. The guardian of the gate is everp true 



192 


God's Better Thing 


Christian soul and all true Christian souls, from 
Catherine Booth or Katie Lee, the Angel Adjutant, 
opening the way of life to hardened criminals in 
modern London back to Saint Peter or Saint Paul, 
opening the mystery of the forgiveness of sins to citi¬ 
zens of the Roman Empire. 

The Keys Themselves 

And these keys, what are they? Christ speaks as 
though there were a bunch of them—keys it may be 
of outer and inner doors, or of lower and upper locks, 
for possibly the gates of the kingdom do not yield easy 
entrance. 

Is it difficult to see that there are at least three keys 
that need vigorous use to “ open the kingdom of 
heaven ” to other souls? 

Conviction 

There is the £ep of a great conviction. Only a con¬ 
vinced soul can convince others, only a convicted 
church can convict the world. Peter’s blessedness con¬ 
sisted in the uprush within him of an overwhelming 
conviction as to the dignity and worth of Christ. Here 
was the One who must be obeyed, here was the King 
of the kingdom! The Spirit of the Father working in 
his soul had illumined his understanding of Jesus, and 
the great testimony leapt to his lips and would not 
be kept back, “ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God.” Jesus was the highest he had ever seen 
or known, and Peter chose the highest term he could 



The Guardian of the Gate 


193 


find in which to express the overpowering sense of 
Christ’s worth that had come to him. It is significant 
that Saint John associates this power of the keys with 
the gift of the Holy Spirit whose work he defines pe¬ 
culiarly as that of conviction. The world is always 
wanting to know, very wistfully, how far the church 
is really convinced of its own beliefs, and it is very 
weary and impatient of a mere “ hearsay ” testimony. 
It listens for the ring of genuine conviction in our 
voices, and it looks for the hall-mark of sincerity in 
our lives. 

This key is only produced in the foundry of ex¬ 
perience. It cannot be glibly assumed. The imitation 
key is not weighty enough to turn the lock. It was 
because Peter had been with Jesus that he knew his 
Lord’s worth. His conviction was rooted like rock in 
the everlasting mountains of reality, unmovable, un- 
shakeable, no matter what the blow or thrust, capable 
of bearing any weight. 

Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest 
Cannot confuse or doubt Him or deny. 
y ea —O World—though thou deniest 

Stand thou on that side—for on this am I. 

Wherever such profound conviction exists there is the 
power that moves the doubting souls of men to make 
fresh trial of faith. Do you really believe? is the 
world’s yearning cry to the church, and only a confi¬ 
dent and evidently genuine “ Yea ” will win a respect¬ 
ful hearing for the great message. 



194 


Cod's Better Thing 


The Key of Witness 

It is a bunch of keys. Where one is the other will 
be. Let this conviction seize upon a soul, and it can¬ 
not keep silence—the news is too good—it means too 
much for other souls, to be kept to oneself. And what 
a difference it makes to use this k e V °f witness. Sup¬ 
pose this witness had never been heard in the British 
Isles as it has not yet been heard in certain districts 
of Central Africa! Just as the man whose sight has 
always been normal cannot understand the blind man’s 
agony and loss, so we who have grown up in a land 
of light with an open Bible and a free witness fail 
lamentably to realize the loss that its absence means 
to a land and people. The condition of our evangel¬ 
ized country is like that of a vestibule to the divine 
kingdom the door of which is ever and anon opened 
so that through it there comes streaming the light and 
beauty of the kingdom inviting all to enter who will. 
But in lands where the gospel is little or ill-known 
there is no such opening door yielding illumination and 
providing a constant attraction and invitation. 

Using the Key 

It is very wonderful what the personal use of this 
key of witness can accomplish. One thinks, for ex¬ 
ample, of an obscure youth whose name is not known 
to history. He was an apprentice to a small shoe¬ 
maker in Kettering. Being a Christian youth he saw 
no reason for remaining silent about it, and in a shop, 



The Guardian of the Gate 


195 


the moral atmosphere of which was decidedly bad, 
he raised the standard of Christian purity. How far 
he affected the shop is not known, but how far he af¬ 
fected the world is better appreciated. For a com¬ 
panion apprentice became interested through his influ¬ 
ence in the kingdom of God and passed through the 
gate that he had opened. The name of this companion 
was William Carey, and with that noble pioneer of 
missions there passed through that gate potentially a 
countless host of souls from all the nations upon earth. 
It is a thrilling privilege to be a guardian of the Gate. 

Idle Janitors 

When will the church rise to the full splendor of its 
power of witnessing for Christ? So many of its mem¬ 
bers are dead and silent. Just a key-word or two 
would introduce needy souls about them to the com¬ 
fort and the glory of the kingdom, but those words are 
not uttered, the witness is not borne. “ Whosoever 
sins ye retain on earth, they shall be retained in 
heaven.” There is expressed your awful responsibility 
and mine, if we are unfaithful in our witness. How 
many souls may still be fast-bound in the foul prisons 
of sin because you have never spoken a liberating word 
of testimony concerning the saving grace of God in 
Christ! Be not idle janitors of such a store-house of 
treasure as is the kingdom of Heaven! Jesus warns 
us that upon the faithful witness of his disciples God 
has placed the full weight of human destiny; if they 
do not spread the light, darkness will still possess the 



196 


God's Better Thing 


people. There is an ancient legend that the angels of 
heaven said to the Lord upon his ascension, “ Lord, 
what are the prospects of the kingdom upon the 
earth? ” And he replied, “ I am trusting to Peter 
and his fellow disciples.” “ But, Lord,” asked the 
angels, “ suppose they fail you? ” “ I have no 

other plan,” said the Lord solemnly, “ they will not 
fail.” He has no other plan. For good or ill the 
salvation of men depends on the testimony of men. 
“Ye shall be my witnesses ” is the Lord’s chosen 
method of bringing the world to God. 

The Key of Sacrifice 

The third key that hangs on the bunch at the 
guardian’s girdle is the £ep of suffering. The blood 
of the martyrs is the seed of the church—it is the 
“ open sesame ” of the kingdom of God—for it is the 
irrefragable seal set to their testimony. Men may 
champion an error or even a prejudice and a delusion 
in the stubbornness of intellectual pride, but they will 
only suffer, as Christian martyrs have suffered, for 
what they feel to be real and true. Nothing has won 
a hearing for Christ with the world so surely as his 
Cross. It is the master-key. 

He only could unlock the gate 

Of heaven and let us in. 

And when men see that key in our hand then they 
know we have the wardenship of the gate. It is always 
the crowning argument, the final appeal. It was when 



The Guardian of the Gate 


197 


Paul looked on the stoning of Stephen that the great 
change began in him. For every martyr that Rome 
slew an inquirer sprang up to knock upon the sacred 
gate and to find entrance. The terrible Boxer Re¬ 
bellion in China some ten years ago tore up Chris¬ 
tian churches by the roots, but in doing so it scattered 
the sacred seed of testimony far and wide through 
China and by blood-marked doors souls crowded into 
the kingdom of Christ. 

“ Love’s strength standeth in Love’s sacrifice,” and 
when men see that we can suffer and sacrifice for the 
kingdom they begin to take it seriously at last. 

Do you remember what Little Em’ly said in her 
memorable letter to David Copperfield? “ When I 
see what you and uncle are, I can think what God is 
like, and I can cry to him.” Their patient self-sacri¬ 
fice had flung open the door of heaven to her. 

Open Sesame 

In the providence of almighty God every soul stands 
in a relationship of unique power to some other soul 
or souls, parent, guardian, confidential friend, hero or 
heroine, to some circle of acquaintance. If this soul 
finds Christ, those others will find him. If this soul 
says “ Come,” those others will come. Could any soul 
for one moment have even a partial vision of that 
divine kingdom, its infinite wealth, its manifold glories, 
its deathless art, its rapturous harmony, its ineffable 
peace, its infinitude of blessing, no soul could refuse 
the majestic privilege of opening the kingdom of 



198 


God's Better Thing 


heaven to new believers. Consecrated lips would 
burn to utter the magic words of grace, dedicated lives 
would mount with holy joy the altars of sacrifice, all 
would thrill with eager haste to fling open the gate of 
the new life to the perishing souls about them. 

That happy gate, which leads to where 
Love is like sunshine in the air. 

And love and law are both the same. 

Named with an everlasting name. 



VIII 


" JESUS—THE SIN-BEARER ” 

The Christian gospel repudiates that righteousness 
which refuses any responsibility for redemption, that 
kind which rejoices in “ I thank Thee, Lord, that I 
am not as other men,” and knows nothing of “ God be 
merciful to me a sinner.” 

Instead, it speaks of “ A Lamb of God who bears 
away the sin of the l lWd,” and of one “ Who bore 
in his own body our sins upon the tree.” 

The Offense of the Cross 

But is such “ bearing away of sins ” fact or fiction? 
Is it simply a concoction of priestcraft, a web spun 
from the brain of the theologian? Or is it true? Is it, 
as it has been termed, simply an anodyne for the soul 
irritated by its mistakes and folly? Is it just a drug 
for the conscience, in reality not raising it at all, but 
simply depreciating its moral tone? 

What about the wide-spread feeling of the modern 
mind that to talk of any one bearing another’s sin 
borders on immorality and savors of gross injustice? 

Men have felt this so strongly that they have de¬ 
clared themselves willing, nay, determined, to bear their 
sins themselves, and refuse to acknowledge the need 
of a Saviour or the right of any other to interfere. 

o 199 


200 


Cod's Better Thing 


Associated with this attitude is the wide-spread per¬ 
plexity as to why, in a world governed by God, the 
innocent should suffer for the guilty to so fearful an 
extent and everywhere. 

We are told that it is only by a kind of legal fiction 
that Jesus can be said to bear the sins of any one. It 
is an artificial, albeit beautiful, little bit of myth¬ 
making which expresses in exaggerated form the sym¬ 
pathy of Jesus. Jesus was just a martyr, dying for 
his principles, but his death means no more and no 
less than the death of Socrates or Stephen. 

Perhaps the first thing to be said in reply to such 
contentions is that Jesus himself claims much more for 
his death than that. You cannot read his utterances 
without seeing that he interprets his death by Isaiah 
Fifty-three. Jesus takes John’s and Peter’s view of 
his own Cross. Something definitely redemptive was 
to be accomplished by his death, in regard to human 
sin. 

Members One of Another 

But it is the fact of the suffering of the innocent for 
the guilty that takes us into the very heart of the 
matter. 

John Stuart Mill, in his essay upon Nature, puts 
the matter thus: 

If the law of all creation were justice and the Creator 
omnipotent, then, in whatever amount suffering and happiness 
might be dispensed to the world, each person s share of them 
Would be exactly proportioned to that person s good or evil 



“ Jesus—The Sin-Bearer ” 


201 


deeds. No human being would have a worse lot than another 
without worse deserts. 

That is the kind of world Mill wants, and many of 
us feel inclined to agree with him. The awful suffer¬ 
ings of little children, for example, due to the sins of 
adults, seem terribly cruel and unjust. Think how the 
whole world is suffering just now, chiefly for the sins 
of a small group of men. And we all think we could 
arrange a better world. Like Omar Khayyam, we 
would like to 

Grasp this sorry scheme of things entire 

And mold it nearer to the heart’s desire. 

But it is not so easily done. One is surprised that 
John Stuart Mill should have been betrayed into mak¬ 
ing so shallow a demand. If the world should ever 
become organized on his principle he would have, for 
example, the mothers against him. Any true mother, 
rather than be shut out of her child’s life, would in¬ 
finitely prefer the pain and burden of sharing in her 
child’s shame. Though she may have occasion on her 
knees before a holy God, whose law her son has 
broken, to exclaim, “ Had I been a better woman, he 
had been a better son! ” she, I repeat, would rather 
endure that agony of self-condemnation than be shut 
up to her own desert entirely and be utterly unable 
to bear any such burden for her boy. For that is 
what this demand of Mill for an evident, rigid, in¬ 
dividual justice means. Each life is to be shut up to its 



202 


God's Better Thing 


own burden of sin or merit of goodness, and none other 
must share with it in either. 

Shakespeare may write his glorious plays, but you 
and I must not reap their benefit. It was not our 
talent or toil that produced them. Beethoven may 
write his Sonatas, but only he must enjoy them. Why 
should you be blessed with a sonata written by some¬ 
body else? It isn’t fair! 

That child of yours, being ignorant and undevel¬ 
oped, is in considerable danger in the world, but you 
must not share with it anything you have gathered of 
knowledge or wisdom. Why should you? To every 
life its own deserts! 

As a matter of fact the human individual is the 
focus of the human race. “ He is a part of all whom 
he has met.” All who ever went before him had some 
share in the making of him. How then can you shut 
him up to his own deserts? It is like asking that the 
limbs of the body shall flourish or fail strictly accord¬ 
ing to their individual behavior. Only in one way can 
you prevent the members of the body drawing health 
or disease from each other, and that is by severing 
them. The result of that is mutilation and death! 

Similarly, to object to the suffering of the innocent 
for the guilty is to demand the breaking up of the body 
of humanity , the severance of life from life, of genera¬ 
tion from generation, the reduction of human society 
to a mere concourse of isolated atoms. Would that 
be justice to beings who have learned to love? Such 
self-contained creatures would be utter strangers to 



“ Jesus—The Sin-Bearer 99 


203 


love. And love! the sweet fellowship of life with life! 
—who will dare to claim that it is not every whit well 
worth the price that is paid for it in such suffering? 

We share the good of each other’s lives. The 
guilty are constantly being redeemed by the innocent. 

Whene’er a noble deed is wrought. 

Whene’er is spoken a noble thought, 

Our hearts in glad surprise 
To higher levels rise. 

Now, we don’t object to that side of the arrange¬ 
ment, do we? We don’t call that immoral, though, 
strictly, it comes to our sharing in a righteousness that 
is not our own. Can we not see that if the bond of life 
to life, which makes that glorious redeeming influence 
possible, is to hold good, we must be willing to accept 
the other things that come to us by reason of that holy 
bond—the drain upon our sympathy—and strength, 
the pain and shame and grief that are just the price 
we pay for a world built for love? 

The Human Demand for Atonement 

Now, if we have realized the truth of this; that we 
belong to each other, and that God could not let us 
escape the evil of that union except by sacrificing the 
good of it, then we come face to face with a demand 
for atonement , not only from God but from each other, 
from man. So far indeed are we now from saying that 
the suffering of the innocent for the guilty is immoral, 
that we are forced to say instead that only by the 



204 


Cod's Better Thing 


willing suffering of the good and the pure and the in¬ 
nocent can humanity ever be saved. It is important 
for us to realize that atonement is a human demand 
as well as a divine. We want wrong to be righted in 
every life. We want justice done to every soul. 
What a demand for this arose to God and man 
through the awful sufferings and injustices of the war! 
The only sufficient meaning of atonement is that every 
soul shall not only find its own sin forgiven, but shall 
find its wrongs compensated, its sufferings paid for, 
the frightful loss, occasioned to it by the sins of others, 
made up to it. If atonement in God’s universe means 
anything, it can mean nothing short of that. And we 
are all asking for it. 

Asking 'whom? Is it of any use asking men? Can 
men do anything to compensate you for the loss of 
your husband or son in this war, for the frightful 
wrong that war-mongers have done to you and millions 
like you? What can wash away their sin? Human 
blood? 

Or, to become more personal, how shall adequate 
atonement be made for pour sin? Humanity being a 
society, your sin has traveled beyond your reach, 
blighting life after life in its ruinous course. Even now 
you are not the father to your children, the brother 
to your fellows you might have been because of that 
folly of bygone days. Your guilt has fallen upon the 
innocent. Can you bear your own sin? Has it not 
grown to dimensions far beyond your capacity? 

How eagerly you would lift it if you could! How 



“ Jesus—The Sin-Bearer ” 


205 


passionately you desire to follow your sin through all 
its wide-spreading mischief, and retrieve the lives that 
have been soiled and injured by it! Is it not indeed 
an intolerable load? How feeble a remedy for this 
common plight is reformation! Your scientific moral¬ 
ist says: “ Forget the past. Try again. Don’t take 
your sins too seriously.” But the Christian moralist 
can take the past no less seriously than the present. 
He knows that the past flows through the present to 
meet one again in the future, and he is aiming, not 
merely at self-betterment, but at the achievement of the 
best. Reformation only seems to him too much like 
absconding from the debts of the past on the plea of 
better behavior in the future. The past is not so easily 
escaped. It places its dead hand on the new effort 
and paralyzes it. This is why men who really under¬ 
stand the human situation yearn to see atonement actu¬ 
ally operative in their life. To them it is no theological 
formula and device, but their only hope of life. 

What Sinning Means to Love 

Now it is possible for men in a measure to bear the 
sins of each other. Through the suffering of others 
for our misdeeds a great call comes sounding to us for 
repentance and better living. In so far as we respond 
to that call their suffering may be said to bear away 
our sins. 

Donald Maclean, in his novel, “ The Man from 
Curdie’s River,” gives us a vivid illustration of human 
sin-bearing. The minister, the hero of the book, is 



206 


God's Better Thing 


trying to tell another man how he became a Christian. 
As a young man he took to wild ways and plunged 
into drunkenness and vice. One day he was playing 
and singing a ribald song at the piano of a saloon. 
The door was open and a crowd gathered. With his 
boon companions he kept the place in a drunken up¬ 
roar. Suddenly, over the top of the piano, he saw his 
mother’s face looking at him from the edge of the 
crowd. It was a fleeting glimpse, but long enough for 
him to see the horror in her eyes, the burning flush of 
shame upon her cheeks. Hurriedly he shut the piano 
and lurched into the street and found his way home. 
That night, as he went to rest, he heard sobs coming 
from his mother’s room. Silently he stole to her door, 
quietly he opened it and looked within. His mother 
was kneeling by her bed, pouring out her stricken heart 
to God. It was the sight of his sin, falling with such 
crushing weight upon that loving heart, which re¬ 
vealed to him at once the horror of the thing he was, 
and the utter hatefulness of his sin, and which led him 
to strong crying for the mercy and help of God. 

Ah! could we but always see what our sinning 
means to love! But what is true of the human love is 
truer still, more glorious and wonderful beyond our 
telling, of the Infinite Heart of God. 

The Cross and the Heart of God 

Just as a mother cannot leave her child to the horror 
of its own sin-burden, neither can God leave any child 
of his. “ Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried 



207 


“ Jesus—The Sin-Bearer ” 


our sorrows. * Surely! The full weight of sin falls 
after all, not on us, but upon him. On him is laid 
“ the iniquity of us all.** 

The Cross of Calvary unveils for us the Heart of 
God. It assures us that no human soul is alone with 
its awful burden of wrong-doing. No soul is shut up 
to the hopeless task of making atonement for itself. 
Divine love smiles at the barren logic of the scientific 
moralist, it revolts against the unredemptive and vin¬ 
dictive judgment of the Pharisee, it refuses to acquiesce 
in any gulf between itself and the soul for which it 
yearns. Those outstretched arms of Christ on Cal¬ 
vary are God’s arms, opened wide in mercy and wel¬ 
come for every sinning child of our unhappy race. 
“ God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” 

Let no man imagine that in such statements we are 
using mere metaphors. It is no legal fiction, or any 
other kind of fiction, to speak of Jesus bearing our 
sins. It is fact, sober, thrilling fact of history. All 
through his wonderful ministry the aim of Jesus was 
to companion sinning souls, in order to lift from them 
the intolerable load of sin. With this in view he sub¬ 
mitted to baptism, he ate and drank with publicans 
and sinners, he defended the woman taken in adultery 
from those who would have shut her up alone to her 
sin, he spoke words of infinite mercy and unstinted for¬ 
giveness. He went about doing good, with the one 
purpose of putting his strength beneath the weakness 
of men, of allying his uncorrupted and perfect life with 
the wasted, stunted lives of the prodigal, the vicious 




208 


God's Better Thing 


and the proud. See him there in the garden, how sin 
gathers to him, surrounds him and draws from him the 
sweat of blood! The sin of Judas, of Peter, of Caia- 
phas, of Pilate, of the multitude, nay, of the whole 
world. None can deny that Jesus had the world-out¬ 
look and drew to his own great heart the shame of 
all its sin! There is no sin-bearer in history like Jesus! 

But there are aspects of the sin-bearing of our 
Lord which are far removed from any human parallel. 
In the first place, he is the fountain-head of that vi¬ 
carious sin-bearing spirit, the operation of which is so 
characteristic of true motherhood and brotherhood. It 
is Christ in the mother who acts like that. In the 
second place, the power of his sin-bearing spirit, the 
operation of his great sacrificial love, reaches far be¬ 
yond the unaided meager range of human effort. Our 
sin falls upon the whole race, it pursues souls into 
eternity. How impotent we are to follow and catch 
up its mischief excepting in and by Christ. All power 
is his in heaven and on earth. His omnipresent spirit 
can redeem every life. The virtue of his Cross streams 
through the whole universe, reaching and finding the 
stray sheep of the flock. 



IX 


THE DIVINE EVANGELIST 

A Plea for a New Evangelism 

There is no more sad or serious aspect of modern 
religious life than the divorce between the great mass 
of the people and the churches of Christ. The 
problem as to “ how to reach the masses ” has been 
before us now for a generation and does not seem much 
nearer solution. Doubtless, however, we might learn 
much to help us in this direction, if we would return to 
a study of Jesus and his methods. The very first thing 
such a return would do for us would be to place upon 
every Christian disciple the grave responsibility of 
evangelism. It would be impossible to escape the con¬ 
viction that Jesus expects his disciples to concern them¬ 
selves in life chiefly with the making of other disciples. 
His own passion for “ individuals ” is patent to every 
reader of the gospel. Is he sitting weary by the way- 
side well? He nevertheless has leisure and energy to 
devote his attention to the soul of the Samaritan 
woman! In doing so he declares he has “ meat to eat 
ye know not of.” Does Nicodemus seek him by 
night? Jesus has leisure and to spare to argue with a 
solitary soul. On the Jericho road, though surrounded 
by the crowd, he has eyes and thought mainly for 

209 


210 


God's Better Thing 


Zacchaeus! So one might go on instancing his interest 
in individuals—his immediate disciples, the woman 
with the issue of blood, the little group at Bethany, 
each one of which Jesus had evidently carefully 
studied, the Syrophenician woman—and who can tell 
how many more beside? Jesus did not rely upon 
great preachings, upon public demonstrations, he sim¬ 
ply reached out to the humanity nearest him whether 
individual or group or crowd—but always he was at 
his work of winning souls to his Father. Here is a test 
of likeness to Christ indeed for our modern church- 
membership ! 

Our chief tragedy is that while this membership is 
in daily touch with the world, it is in touch only on the 
low level of worldly life and thought. These myriad 
points of contact over which should leap the burning 
thrill of the divine magnetism are not alive. In the 
day when the disciples of Christ share his evangelic 
passion, the church will have reached the masses in¬ 
deed, and the masses will not then be long in reaching 
the churches. 

It is possible to mark certain outstanding features of 
the evangelism of our Lord. 

The Infinite Value of the Soul 

The most important characteristic is central to his 
gospel. Jesus sarv in each separate soul an absolute 
value. He knew the infinite worth in his Father’s sight 
of every individual. This was the reason he put for¬ 
ward again and again for his own interest in men. 



The Divine Evangelist 


211 


“ There is joy in the presence of the angels of God 
over one sinner that repenteth.” 

One grand result of this estimate of the soul was 
that Jesus never approached men and women with any 
other motive than his deep and passionate love and 
respect for them. His evangelism ivas entirely free 
from the taints of professionalism and ulterior motive. 
We know all too well the evangelism that collects and 
counts souls as the Indian brave used to collect and 
count scalps. “ So many conversions this week, this 
year! ” It is this taint of ulterior purpose that has 
rightly caused a revulsion of feeling against evangel¬ 
ism in both the church and the world. 

The writer remembers a first interview with one 
who afterward became a close friend who greeted him 
thus: “ I suppose you want to do me good? Well! 
I don’t want to be done good to! ” One understands 
all the fierce resentment behind those words of a soul 
that thinks itself sought for some other reason than 
its own intrinsic worth and dignity. Any suggestion 
of patronage on the part of the saved is fatal to their 
evangelism. 

It is not enough to seek souls in order to build up a 
church or to increase one’s own renown as a soul-win¬ 
ner, or to satisfy one’s own sense of Christian duty. 
Only to the atmosphere of genuine personal apprecia¬ 
tion and love will souls respond. And they are right. 
Jesus loved the human soul in every individual well 
enough to die for it. His followers must learn the same 
pure passion before they can exert the same attraction. 



212 


God's Better Thing 


Up a Tree 

The story of Zacchaeus illustrates powerfully a fur¬ 
ther fundamental characteristic of our Lord’s method, 
namely, his absolute faith in the power of every soul 
to respond. No subject for evangelism could have 
been more unpromising than this tax-gatherer. He 
was just the type we all agree, in these days, to be 
hopeless. He was a “profiteer”! Yet with what 
perfect confidence in the better Zacchaeus did Jesus 
approach him. Jesus knew that this man like every 
other unsaved soul, was morally “ up a tree.” Zac¬ 
chaeus* inner life, to use our modern terms, was a cruel 
dichotomy. A false and hated self posed before men 
as the extortioner and the grinder of the faces of the 
poor. In the deepest dungeon of the soul there lay an 
imprisoned and tortured Zacchaeus whose protests ever 
and anon reverberated most uncomfortably through his 
“ house of life.” That better self is every soul’s pos¬ 
session. There is a “ light that lighteth every man 
coming into the world.” Do we believe that of one 
another? Do we believe it of the persons we meet in 
business or in social life? Do we realize it of our 
office companion, our fellow clerk or shopman, or 
of those in our own home? Do we resolutely believe 
it of the unlikeliest souls? Could we but see beneath 
all their surface objections to religion, beneath their 
indifference or antagonism, we should undoubtedly 
find each soul “ up a tree.” That quaint colloquialism 
indicates the deep embarrassment and perplexity which 



The Divine Evangelist 


213 


secretly beset every unsaved soul, however blatant 
may be its outward parade and swagger. In every 
soul estranged from God there lies deeply buried a 
conscience that speaks in behalf of the evangelist. 

It is literally amazing what revelations of inward 
spiritual disturbance and pathetic moral wistfulness 
will break forth from a soul which is met in another by 
a strong belief in this buried better self. Often it is 
not necessary for the would-be evangelist to say a 
word or in any sense to force the situation. Simply 
to have that faith in others which Jesus so tenaciously 
held supplies magnetism enough to draw forth these 
deep confidences. If only all Christian people would 
set silent spiritual siege to the souls about them with 
such a holy faith in their redeemability! Would not 
the atmosphere of all their intercourse be irresistibly 
charged with the evangel of Jesus? 

Adventurous Attack 

Notice also the delightful and frank boldness of 
Jesus in his attack upon Zacchaeus. There is great 
humor to be found in the story when closely studied. 
Driven by the deep hidden wistfulness of his soul to 
seek Jesus, Zacchaeus fails in his attempt to get through 
the crowd because of his lack of stature. It is hardly 
likely the people would make way for such as he. But 
he is a man of resource, and he remembers the syca¬ 
more tree. He hurries on ahead of the crowd till he 
turns the bend in the road. I’m sure there was a bend 
in the road just there, otherwise Zacchaeus would 



214 


God's Better Thing 


never have found pluck enough to climb that tree. 
It would indeed have been funny to see this little rich 
man casting his Eastern dignity to the winds and climb¬ 
ing that tree. At last snugly hidden among the leaves 
he feels secure from observation and is ready to enjoy 
a full view of Jesus. Along the road comes the Sa¬ 
viour with the crowd and stops beneath the tree. 
Then, oh! consternation! Jesus looks up at the syca¬ 
more and calls, “ Zacchaeus! come down ”! Fancy 
giving the whole show away like that! Yes, it is very 
funny! Yet if Jesus had said nothing but that it 
might have been tragic too, for Zacchaeus might have 
resented being made the butt of the crowd’s humor. 
Jesus, however, was never lacking in tact, and to his 
humorous exposure of Zacchaeus he adds the high com¬ 
pliment, from a rabbi, of inviting himself to the extor¬ 
tioner’s house. By that simple turn of the situation 
Jesus found his way right into the heart of Zacchaeus. 
That was all Jesus cared for. Convention, the opinion 
of the crowd, his own reputation—these mattered noth¬ 
ing, beside his concern for this struggling soul. There 
was nothing of that kind of cheap self-preservation 
about this Divine Evangelist. Tact and boldness, an 
understanding of human nature and courageous frank¬ 
ness, a true psychology, and a power of adventurous 
attack, there is the ideal combination for the soul- 
winner. Cannot the modern disciple of Jesus learn of 
him these things? “ He that is wise winneth souls.” 
The church today is wofully lacking in this power of 
attack, and the reason is not far to seek. She is too 



The Divine Evangelist 


215 


sensitive—which means that her members are too sen¬ 
sitive—to the conventions of mere respectability, to 
the traditions and opinions of polite society. Where 
there is fear of men passion can hardly thrive, and the 
modern church is singularly lacking in passion for the 
one purpose for which her Lord called her into being. 
The Son of man came to seek and to save the lost. 
His church today seems to spend most of her strength 
in coddling the saints. 

The Values of Conversion 

Yet it would require very few triumphs of a real 
Christian evangelism for the unique joy of it to kindle 
a blaze of enthusiasm. 

If we dwelt with the mind of Jesus in this matter he 
would convince us of the inestimable value of convert¬ 
ing a soul genuinely to God. The evangelism of Jesus 
in the case of Zacchaeus had far-reaching results. 
Think of the social value! Many a home sunk in un¬ 
deserved poverty received fourfold for its cruel loss. 
Think of the home value! I don’t know whether 
Zacchaeus was married or not, but if so I can imagine 
his wife singing perpetual hallelujahs to the Name of 
Jesus for restoring the soul of her husband. Ah! the 
home value of that new life which comes to men in 
Christ! Think of the individual value! Zacchaeus 
was henceforth a better companion to himself than he 
had ever been before. If we could once truly envisage 
these values of conversion we should esteem it the 
supreme privilege of our life here on earth to be able to 



216 


Cod's Better Thing 


befriend other souls in the behalf of Christ, to speak 
a word here and there for him, to turn men from dark¬ 
ness to light. We should not rest till we had essayed 
the new evangelism to which Christ calls his disciples 
in these critical yet opportune days. 



X 


GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH 

A Christmas Meditation 

Cold for Kingliness! It was a king the wise men 
sought, and it was a King they found! That Babe 
has placed his royal will upon a thousand million 
hearts; his little hands have waved a world into a new 
and a more tender way of life; he has brought new 
hope to Motherhood and a new nobility to Father¬ 
hood, whilst he has opened the gate of Mercy to 
Childhood. 

It was indeed the King of Humanity they found, 
destined to hold his throne not by the fear of men, but 
by their love; not by their bondage, but by their free¬ 
dom ; not by the brittle power of the sword, but by the 
magnetic might of the Cross; not by the accidental 
claim of heredity, but by the inherent worth of peer¬ 
less character. 

Moreover, they found the King whose " kingdom 
hath no frontiers.*’ Because it is not of this world, it 
is for all the world and for every world. Jesus is the 
great “point of rest’’ in human history; other kings 
come and go, are crowned and deposed, but this King 
is “ the stone which the builders rejected,” but who 
“ is become the head of the corner,” never more to be 

217 


218 


God's Better Thing 


moved, “ the same yesterday, today, and for ever.” 
He holds his court in every human heart for homage or 
for judgment, and no living soul can now escape the 
challenge of his scepter, the inevitable question, “ Wilt 
thou have this man to reign over you? ” 

Gold was indeed a fitting gift! In Richter’s fa¬ 
mous words we may say: “ He is the holiest among the 
mighty, and the mightiest among the holy; with his 
pierced hands he has lifted empires off their hinges, 
turned the course of the centuries, and still governs the 
ages.” 

It was night in the heart of the Soudan. The stars 
cast their thin streams of light serenely down upon a 
circle of men who were gathered on the outskirts of 
Khartoum. In the center of the circle stood a tall 
white missionary, athletic in build and powerful of 
voice. For six weeks or so he had been patiently in¬ 
structing the natives seated round him in the first 
principles of the Christian faith. They were men 
drawn from about twenty inland tribes. In that part 
of Central Africa, made so famous by memories of 
Gordon and Kitchener, there are many millions of 
natives who have scarcely heard the name of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. With infinite labor these men had been 
brought together and induced to undergo a little train¬ 
ing before returning to their people. 

The task of commending Christ to their respective 
tribes was fraught with the utmost peril. Occasional 
cannibalism was a characteristic still of these dwellers 
in the heart of Africa. The young missionary knew 



Cold , Frankincense , and Myrrh 219 


that it would require enormous courage for them to 
play their part. The last night had come. Tomorrow 
the little band would break up, and each man go his 
own way back to his own people. Very solemnly, as 
they sat in the stillness of the night, their teacher spoke 
to them of the work Christ required of them. He pic¬ 
tured all their difficulties and their risks—the great 
possibility of a cruel death. Then quite plainly he 
put the issue before them. “ Now which of you is 
ready and will promise to try to make Jesus King in 
your tribe—King over its heart and all its life? ” 

He waited in the darkness for their reply. At first 
there was nothing but a silence that could be felt. He 
knew that for many of them the promise might mean 
death. Suddenly one of them broke the silence with 
a strong, clear voice, Ina So, he said, “ I will.” Then 
another and another, Ina So, Ina So , they said, “ I 
will,” ” I will,” till every man in that circle had 
pledged himself to make Christ King even at the cost 
of his own life. Very soon the circle broke up and 
each man sought his rest till daybreak—the day of his 
great new task of King-making. 

Is Christ yet truly King in power as well as name in 
London and New York, in England or America? 
Shall it be said that those who have heard of Christ 
only for six weeks show greater devotion to him than 
those who have known him all their lives? Who will 
say of this task of King-making, “ I will ”? 

Have we brought to Him our gold? Is our mer¬ 
chandise consecrated? Is money laid at his feet—all 



220 


Cod's Better Thing 


of it—in use as well as in gift? They were n use men 
who brought gold; God give us a like wisdom to lay 
this mighty power upon the same shrine in these latter 
days. Gold for his Kingliness! 

Frankincense for Worship! It was the symbol of 
divinity. Kings were as gods in those days, yet this 
King was God himself. All their vain and foolish 
aspirations after divine honors but bespeak their human 
frailty, whilst all the sweet and perfect humanity of 
Jesus befits his claim to be more than man. These 
wise men, giving only a formal recognition to the sup¬ 
posed divine right of kings, spoke better than they 
knew. 

There is no escaping Christ’s awful claim to Deity. 
How terrible it must have been for him to enter so 
slowly and yet so surely into the awful secret of his 
own being! Something of this experience is reflected 
in the modest and quiet way in which his greatest 
claims are made. There is no pomp, no display, no 
parade, but quiet assertions that take one’s breath 
away. “ None knoweth the Son save the Father, 
none knoweth the Father save the Son.” “ Before 
Abraham was, I am.” ” I am ”—that historic self¬ 
description of Jehovah! “ And the Son of man shall 
sit on the throne of his glory, and before him ... all 
the nations . . . and he shall separate them . . . the 
sheep from the goats.” 

Is this the high and ineffable majesty of the Babe in 
swaddling-clothes? Then frankincense is indeed a 



Cold , Frankincense , and Myrrh 


221 


fitting gift! And how this God in human-wise befits 
our human need! God unseen and spiritual and only 
that! How shall he ever dominate hearts that are 
bound about by material things, or rescue souls buried, 
lost, in matter? 

’Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh that I 
seek 

In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Soul! it shall be 
A Face like to my face that receives thee, a man like to me 
Thou shalt love and be loved by for ever. A hand like this 
hand 

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee. See the Christ 
stand! 

Yes indeed! Frankincense for worship! “ Let us 
worship and bow down.” “ Let us come before the 
Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are the 
people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand.” 


And Myrrh for the Sorrow that Redeems! “ Was 
there ever sorrow like unto my sorrow? ” “ Is it noth¬ 
ing to you, all ye that pass by? ” It is part of true 
wisdom to remember that suffering is the price of life, 
hence the inclusion by the wise men of this highly sym¬ 
bolic gift! Yet how perfectly suitable! Already 
the Cross was hidden there in that sacred life! Al¬ 
ready the great sacrifice had begun! Heaven’s glory 
and Deity’s privilege had been surrendered for the 
risks and pains of earth. 

Again these men prophesied better than they knew. 




222 


God’s Better Thing 


The mark of sacrifice was early evident in that young 
life. At the age of twelve we find him resisting the 
impulse to seek a “ religious ” life in the temple in 
order to return to the drudgery of Nazareth and to 
the aid of his mother and brothers and sisters. “ He 
pleased not himself ” from end to end of a perfect life. 
The Cross erected at Calvary was the final outward 
expression of the inner and ever-present Cross of a 
perfect self-denial. 

And again how this meets our human need! There 
was a time perhaps when it seemed strange to us that 
God should come to men with “ garments rolled in 
blood,” with “ pierced hands and feet and side,” a 
“ Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ”—but 
that was before we had suffered and found our own 
Gethsemane. Now we feel how unbearable it would 
be if God should come to us as the “ gay Apollo ” of 
pagan hope or the non-suffering “ onlooker ” of some 
latter-day cults of healing. It is this God and this 
God alone who meets the need of our broken heart and 
bruised life—crucified—“ afflicted in all our afflic¬ 
tions ”—“ bearing our griefs and carrying our sor¬ 
rows ”—“ wounded for our transgressions and bear¬ 
ing our iniquity.” 

And when conscience smites us with its majestic 
and overwhelming judgment—as it does so peculiarly 
at Christmastide—smiting our guilt with the eyes of 
an innocent Babe, rebuking our selfishness and pride, 
our cruel indifference to human need, our callous reten¬ 
tion of ease and privilege in the face of wide-spread 



Cold, Frankincense, and Myrrh 


223 


human privation, our personal sins and moral failures 
—then is it not everything to know that God has not 
left us to face the appalling burden of human sin with 
only our impoverished human resources? He has him¬ 
self lifted our burden and made our sin his concern 
that we should be free henceforth to live only unto 
him! Myrrh! ’tis the bitterest and the sweetest of 
these gifts—“ in his bitter is our sweet,” “ by his 
stripes we are healed.” The Incarnation of God is 
perfected in the Atonement. 

Do we come with these wise men and also bring 
these gifts? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh! Will 
Christmas be Christmas for us unless we make our 
own full and free tribute to him, who is our King, our 
God, and our Redeemer? 

“ COME, LET US ADORE HIM! ” 



XI 


" THE DOOR OF LIFE ” 


A New Year Message 

The whole process of religion, pagan and Christian, 
can be summed up in a pregnant metaphor which Jesus 
once used, “ I am the Door.” The conception of a 
gate or door, or way or path, is common to nearly 
every religion. The very name of this first month of 
the year is derived from Roman religion—from Janua 
—a door, connected with Janus the god of beginnings. 
It is not long since a new religion, an offshoot of puri¬ 
fied Mohammedanism, arose in Persia, called Babism 
after its martyred founder the Bab , which means door 
or gate. Every religion declares an open door, and 
with that charity learned of Jesus we may admit that 
every genuine religion is a door leading deeper into 
the mystery of the Divine Life, and bringing men 
nearer to that One and Final Door, Who is indeed 
the true and living way into the “ holy of holies,” ex¬ 
cept by whom no man cometh actually “ unto the 
Father.” 

" Outside ” or " In ” God 

What meaning can roe attach to such roords as 
“ outside ” and “in” Cod? 

Obviously there must be one sense in which it is 

224 


“ The Door of Life ” 


225 


impossible to be “ outside ” God. The term “ God ” 
conveys the idea of “ limitless being ” beyond whom, 
outside of whom, we never can be. “ In him we live, 
and move, and have our being.” So does every other 
existence. 

The farthest stellar spaces are “ in him.” “ He up- 
holdeth all things by the word of his power.” If any¬ 
thing or anybody exists anywhere it is because “ God ” 
is the ground of such existence. Beyond him is noth¬ 
ing, which is only another way of saying there is no 
“ beyond ” at all to him. “ God is in all, and over 
all, and through all.” 

Yet if this great word of Jesus, “ I am the door,” 
has any meaning it must be possible to be “ outside ” 
God in some real and terrible way. One way of ex¬ 
pressing this matter is to think of God’s Being as in¬ 
cluding degrees or levels of being very much as our 
own does. A man distinguishes between his body, his 
mind, his soul. There is a sense in which the “ sticks 
and stones ” of the universe must be in God. Moment 
by moment they are sustained by his thought and will. 
But they remain “ sticks and stones,” and through 
them God can manifest only “ stick-and-stone ” 
nature. 

The ” animal creation ” must be “ in ” him in some 
real sense. “ The lions seek their meat from God 
but again it is only animal nature that can come 
through. But “ man ” is a being with a power of 
movement between “ natures.” He halts as though 
between two kingdoms or worlds, the old unreasoning 



226 


Cod's Better Thing 


animal nature and a new nature of Reason and Love, 
vaguely perceived but deeply desired. A “ door 99 has 
opened for him into a higher level of the Divine Life. 
God’s very heart has opened to receive him into his 
origin’s secret counsel and most intimate feeling. 
From that Central Sympathy with God, that great 
Heart of Being, man can shut himself out. 

Love for Love 

It has been said that “ God sleeps in the stone, stirs 
in the animal, wakes in the savage, and lives in the 
Christian.” 

One has to realize that in such a matter as this we 
are trying to express the unfathomable being of God 
in the very shallow vocabulary of our human experi¬ 
ence. Yet an illustration from our own home life may 
help us. In our families the life of the parents encom¬ 
passes and expresses itself in the persons of the chil¬ 
dren by successive stages. The children grow in the 
likeness of the parents. For years the children remain 
upon what is, in the main, a level of animal nature 
characterized by intense self-regard and individualism. 
At last, however, the light of responsibility and of 
social criticism gleams in the youthful eyes warning 
the parents that unless the children norv step into their 
father's and mother's hearts and give love for Zove, 
then the final harmony of the home is threatened. In 
some homes that step is not taken. The children grow 
up estranged from one or both parents. They fail to 
rise to the closer union their own growth has rendered 



“ The Door of Life 99 


221 


possible. Nourished and sustained by the father’s toil, 
and the mother’s devotion through years of helpless¬ 
ness and ignorance, blessed by their parents’ prayers 
and guided often by a providence of love of which 
they were at the time quite oblivious—they insist, in 
the crisis of responsible youth, upon remaining outside 
the father and mother heart indulging a different sym¬ 
pathy, temper, character, and spirit. 

Such children cannot be happy at home. A sense 
of insecurity and disharmony disturbs their peace of 
mind. Constrained silences break across their attempts 
at intercourse with their parents. The guilty selfish¬ 
ness and aloofness of the children at last poisons the 
atmosphere of the home, bringing misery to all. It is 
not necessary that there should be positive antagonism 
for this misery to be very intense, it is enough that there 
should be distance between hearts that were made for 
each other. 

God’s Outstretched Hands 

Do you recall how Mr. Wells makes Mr. Britling 
speak concerning the aloofness of his son? 

You don’t really know what love is until you have children. 
The love of children is an exquisite tenderness—it reaches 
the heart—it is a thing of God. I lie awake at nights and 
stretch out my hands in the darkness to this lad—who will 
never know until his sons come in their time. 

Even so God “ stretches out his hands ” to every child 
still “ outside ” him. 



228 


Cod's Better Thing 


Naturally to be “ in ” God is the opposite of this 
condition. It means to take your place in his heart, to 
believe it is yours, and to let your soul go to him in 
confidence, in perfect trust and implicit obedience. 
And to take this momentous step, to step into the em¬ 
brace of the Divine Love, is to step into life. When a 
child responds whole-heartedly to his father’s loving, 
the father can then bring to bear on that boy’s life the 
unhindered forces of his greater being and life. Now 
they pull together where before they pulled apart, 
and the father’s resources are added to those of the 
child. 

Here then is the supreme goal of every human life, 
and of all collective human effort—to step into God’s 
life through the ever-open Door of his Love. So that 
at last we think in harmony with his Mind, feel in 
unison with his Feeling, and act in perfect conjunction 
with his Will, pursuing the program of Real being, 
marching rvith the universe, having “ homed ” our 
souls in God. 

Looking Into God’s Heart 

But what has Christ to do with this? Everything! 
He is the Door—the Ever-open Door, because he is 
God’s Love, Incarnate, Living, Real. He reveals in 
a form understandable of God’s human children the 
truest and deepest nature of the Unseen Father. 

Jesus is uniquely the Door into the Heart of God 
because —through him rve see the Heart of Cod. 

Have you ever peeped through an open door at 



“ The Door of Life'* 


229 


some great personality to whom you were never privi¬ 
leged to come very near? You remember the excite¬ 
ment and pleasure tinged with wonder as you gazed 
at the human colossus. Then let your soul thrill with 
awe as looking through Jesus you behold the Supreme 
Personality of the Universe. In Jesus there is pre¬ 
sented to the world a Thought or Vision of God as 
Personal, as Holy, as Altogether Lovable and Loving, 
which is ultimate to the human mind. It is a vision of 
God self-evident in its full-orbed perfection, and in the 
utter satisfaction with which it fills the gazing soul. 
As you look upon Jesus you are constrained to say 
with unspeakable wonder, “ This is He! ” Any 
higher revelation of God is simply inconceivable. 
Jesus has become—think of it!—actually our human 
standard for Cod. No God can hope to command the 
loyalty of men henceforth excepting as he fulfils the 
character given him in and by Jesus. His Name is 
above every name “ to the glory of God the Father.” 
We are sometimes accused, in the value we give to 
Jesus, of narrowing down the majesty of God to the 
confines of a human life. That is not how it appealed 
to the apostles. They knew something of the mis¬ 
chief of a God who was less than Jesus. In him they 
discover instead an exaltation of God’s character—in 
him they find One whose whole witness is “to the 
glory of God the Father.” By him they enter into a 
greater idea, a loftier knowledge and experience of 
God. They find his very Heart, and they find it 
Love. 



230 


God’s Better Thing 


The Living Door 

But Jesus is the Door because through him rve come 
to God. An open door through which you look is one 
thing. A living Door who draws you in is vastly dif¬ 
ferent and more. That is Jesus. Jesus is much more 
than the revelation of God; he is the Way by which 
God lays hold upon the soul, and the soul comes to 
the embrace, warm, living, loving, of God. 

In our day a new kind of staircase has been in¬ 
vented, the moving stair, the escalator. If we may 
dare to use so homely a metaphor, following Christ’s 
homely example, this is the kind of Door Jesus is. 
Intensely active, loving, moving, a Divine Escalator, 
lifting palsied, fearful, trembling souls up from sin to 
God. 

All this indeed is in the word “ Door ” as used by 
Jesus. It was the door of the fold he was thinking of; 
nothing less than the Shepherd himself who was con¬ 
stantly the living door to the fold. Upon its un¬ 
guarded threshold he would sleep with his club beside 
him so that only across him could the robber come at 
the sheep. Or again he would stand in the opening to 
the fold and fight with the wolf or hunger-ridden lion. 
“ The good shepherd layeth down his life for the 
sheep.” But the most apt picture of all is that of the 
shepherd seeking the stray lamb or sheep in the wilder¬ 
ness, regaining it from precipice or torrent and bringing 
it home upon his shoulder rejoicing—the living Door 
to the fold indeed. 



“ The Door of Life ” 


231 


So Christ brings souls to God. In the wilderness of 
misunderstanding, and sin, and sorrow, and fear he 
seeks them and brings them to a God they can trust, 
and love, and in whose mercy they can find refuge 
from every guilty fear. There is a great connection 
between this metaphor of the Door and the story which 
is told in the preceding chapter, of the blind man who, 
when healed, was cast out of the synagogue by the 
religious leaders. Jesus says in effect, “ Men may cast 
you out of earthly temples and out of their own esteem 
and society, but ‘ by Me if any man enter in he shall 
be saved.’ ” It is a wonderful and vivid contrast. This 
Door does not open on some and shut on others. He 
receives all who are willing to enter in. “ He has 
opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” 
Whosoever will may come. 

The Way to Life 

As we go into this New Year by the month that is 
called “ the gate,” let us clearly understand that un¬ 
less we go into it also by Him who is called the Door 
we shall enter upon something that is less than life at 
its best and happiest. 

It stands to reason that the Way of God, the Foun¬ 
tain of Life, is the only Way of Life. “ He that 
hateth Me, loveth death.” 

Amid the flux of the years the change and the de¬ 
cay of things, the dying of the Old, and the coming 
of the New, it is everything to feel the Love of God 
in Christ opening up to us a Life of Ever-increasing 
Q 



232 


Cod's Better Thing 


Good which overarches and outspans all the years of 
our mortality. 

As this New Year dawns, let us accept the invita¬ 
tion of this Ever-open Door of Love, and step in—to 
God! and to Eternal Life! 



XII 


" SAINT PAUL’S SWAN-SONG ” 


The last words of great men always possess a pecu¬ 
liar fascination and interest for our death-shadowed 
race, and seldom perhaps have nobler words been 
uttered in farewell than those of the great apostle to 
the Gentiles. “ I am now ready to be offered, and 
the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a 
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness.” 

These words are a thrilling farewell message from 
the aged warrior, the battle-scarred veteran, to the 
young and eager and raw recruit, Timothy. As such 
they present to us Saint Paul’s view of death, and 
especially his own death. 

The Defeat of Death 

We shall do well to consider the view he presents 
to us. It is not only the height of folly, but it is dis¬ 
tinctly unchristian to seek relief from the Fact of 
Death by simply trying to ignore it and think of some¬ 
thing else. There is of course a morbid concentration 
of mind upon the more painful aspects of death that 
every healthy soul should avoid, but our danger lies 

233 


234 


God's Better Thing 


less in that direction than in a worse morbidity, namely 
that of the soul which simply dares not contemplate 
“ death ” at all—the soul which surrenders so im¬ 
mediately and entirely to the seeming gloom and terror 
of the grave that it cannot summon courage enough 
even to begin to think about it. That way lies no es¬ 
cape, for Death is the most certain fact of life, and to 
plunge into empty gaiety, to drown the muffled drums 
with the flaunting pipes, to grasp feverishly at pleasure 
as the one object to be attained—all this is simply to 
postpone an evil day, and to render it doubly evil when 
it comes. 

No, the soul that is wise will look the King of Ter¬ 
rors boldly in the face—to find the features growing 
familiar and losing their terror, and will bravely pluck 
from Death his cloak of black disguise to discover be¬ 
neath an angel of brightness. 

Certainly, if we contemplate Death in company 
with the apostle Paul, we shall not be able to achieve 
melancholy or long remain in bondage to gloom and 
fear. There is no minor note at all in this swan-song. 
Listen: 

I am ready to he offered. 

The time of my departure is at hand , 

I have fought the good fight , 

I have finished the course , 

I have kept the faith; henceforth — 

The lips that sing that song are aged, but the heart 
that frames it is eternally young. Paul has drunk so 
deep of that elixir of immortal youth, the Spirit of 



“ Saint Paul's Sn>an-Song 


235 


Jesus, that Death holds only what is “ fair and beauti¬ 
ful ” for him. 

Look at the song in detail. 

The Father’s Will 

“ I am ready to be offered.” These words are a 
vivid contrast to those uttered in Paul’s first imprison¬ 
ment in Rome when he wrote to the Philippians. 
Then he said, “ I am in a strait betwixt the two, hav¬ 
ing a desire to depart . . . nevertheless to abide is more 
needful for your sake.” Then he was in doubt as to 
the divine will. Now he is in prison a second time, 
and now he feels he shall not go forth until he goes 
“to be with Christ, which is far better.” Paul has 
here a great conviction of his Father’s will, and he is 
ready to be offered. The use of the word “ offered ” 
indicates the sacrifice involved. Paul loves his work— 
it had been his meat and drink to preach the gospel. 
For the true soldier the end of the campaign is bound 
to have its pathetic and painful aspect, but this Paul 
magnificently overcomes because he feels that God is 
overruling everything, and nothing happens apart from 
his consent. It is a great deal to get that conviction 
into one’s soul—to be ready to die or to live as God 
shall direct, utterly trustful in the wisdom and good¬ 
ness of his decisions. Milton said, “We come not to 
our place by accident,” and that is true, whether the 
place be the throne or the prison, the scaffold or the 
grave. “ Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without 
your heavenly Father.” 



236 


God's Better Thing 


The Prisoner’s Release 

“ The time of my departure is at hand.” Here is 
a way of looking at death indeed. This word “ de¬ 
parture ” has an echo in it of a word that is applied to 
our Lord’s death in the Gospel of Luke, the word 
“ exodus.” Death for Paul is not going into a grave; 
it is not being shut up in the earth. It is a glorious 
faring forth —an exodus from bondage to freedom, 
from the brickfields of Egypt to the Promised Land of 
Canaan. You can hear in this phrase the revolt of 
Paul’s free soul against his prison and his bonds. 
Death will prove the “ happy release.” All the spa¬ 
ciousness of the Better Land will be his in place of 
the narrow dungeon in which he writes. 

A Good Conscience 

“ I have fought the good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith.” This is not egotism. 
We who know Paul’s life know how truly these sen¬ 
tences describe him. Besides, he was not writing for 
himself, but for Timothy. He sings his triumph-song 
for those who follow after. Looking first to the past, 
in just one last, long, lingering look, Paul gathers up 
the consolation that ever attends a good conscience 
and the knowledge of duty faithfully attempted and 
earnestly fulfilled. 

Can any one exaggerate the blessing of a good con¬ 
science in the hour of death? Yet I doubt if Paul’s 
thought is concentrated even upon that. I doubt if it 



“ Saint Paul's Swan-Song ” 


237 


was the first element in this estimate of the past. The 
first element was, I think, one of wonder. Sheer 
wonder that he, the chief of sinners, should have been 
brought through, that he of all people should have 
“ finished his course ” and “ £ep* the faith." 

Moral Completion of Character 

“ Henceforth . . .” Then it is that he lifts his eye 
to the glorious hills of eternal destiny. The Lord who 
had kept him and brought him through, would take 
him on and up to “ the hills of God,” to the place and 
hour of supreme reward, to the crown of righteous¬ 
ness. This phrase “ the crown of righteousness ” is a 
splendid vindication of the selflessness of the Chris¬ 
tian’s ideal. It has so often been represented that the 
Christian emphasis upon reward in the future life is 
sordid and selfish—it is nothing of the kind. The 
apostle is not gloating over a coming life of ease and 
pleasure, he is rejoicing in the “ crown ” that is per¬ 
fect righteousness. It is the moral completion of his 
character in perfect correspondence to that of Christ’s 
that he hails with such rapture. Is that unworthy and 
selfish? 

Thus we have briefly surveyed the song. Now let 
us apply it in its most central ideas to our own hearts 
and lives. And let us recall again why Paul spoke 
thus of himself. It was for Timothy’s sake. There 
is evidence, in this chapter, of Saint Paul’s deep con¬ 
cern for the state of the churches. The fickleness and 
frivolity of many adherents disturb him. They have 



238 


Cod's Better Thing 


“ itching ears,” they want to hear only that which 
“ pleases ” them. They have no stern high demand 
to make upon the preacher and teacher. It is evident 
that Timothy will have his hard times, his peculiar 
perils, his own fight to wage. So Paul’s swan-song is 
intensely practical in its purpose. To hearten Timo¬ 
thy, Paul sings of the way he came and the way he 
goes. How those sentences would ring in Timothy’s 
heart and ears and keep him strong and loyal through 
every test! If we are wise therefore we shall put this 
noble Dead March to a similar use. Paul challenges 
us 

To Keep the Faith 

What does Paul mean by the phrase? He does 
not mean the keeping of a “ creed.” He has no list 
of doctrines about God and Christ in mind. He is 
thinking rather of a solemn pledge that once he made 
of love and loyalty to the Lord. He is thinking of 
“ keeping faith,” rather than “ keeping a faith.” It 
is personal loyalty to the Lord Jesus he is glorying 
in, not the preservation of an intellectual system of 
beliefs. 

Years ago Paul had given over his mind and heart 
and will to Christ, and through all that had happened 
since, he had permitted nothing to spoil or impair that 
surrender. Privation, disaster, disappointment, hostility 
among the brethren, misunderstanding, bodily disease, 
had made his life one long struggle, one great maze of 
misfortune and adversity; yet, through it all, he “ kept 



“ Saint Paul's Srvan-Song ” 


239 


the faith.” He had never let go his trust in the Sa¬ 
viour, his whole-hearted belief in the Lord’s love and 
wisdom and goodness. 

Have we “kept the faith”? Or have we per¬ 
mitted the tears of life to cloud the face of God’s love 
and our hearts to grow cold toward him by reason of 
disappointment and suffering? It is nothing of course 
to keep the faith in the days of prosperity and pleasant¬ 
ness. What virtue is there in the smile that comes only 
with the sunshine? 

The man that’s worth while 
Is the man that can smile 
When everything goes dead wrong. 

I fear we do not realize as we should the fact that 
“ doubt ” is often “ disloyalty.” Doubt of the good¬ 
ness of God has in it an element of insult to God of 
which we are not always sufficiently aware. Who 
would value the love and trust that are not strong 
enough to triumph over appearances of evil? Not thus 
do we judge human friendship. Give us, we say, the 
friend who can trust, sometimes, in the dark. Even 
so God asks us to “ keep the faith,” through thick and 
thin, through all opposition of the world, the flesh, and 
the devil. We are his “ knights ” pledged by solemn 
vows; we cannot lightly disown him or doubt him, for 

Since God is God and right is right. 

Then right the day must win. 

To doubt would be disloyalty — 

To falter would be sin . 



240 


Cod's Better Thing 


A Condition of Sound Doctrine 

And in bidding us “ keep the faith ” in this funda¬ 
mental sense Saint Paul is making sure of “ the 
faith ” in less important meanings. There will be no 
doubt of the soundness of doctrine if men keep loyal 
personally to Jesus. The maintenance of a close, 
warm, vital, personal intercourse with Christ is the first 
condition of a sound theology and a progressive grasp 
of truth. What Paul perceived so clearly was that 
wherever that personal loyalty to Christ was lacking, 
the mind must necessarily wander from the Truth, and 
the subsequent history of the Christian church has more 
than vindicated his insight and anxiety. 

Certainty of the Future 

And without a doubt in the “ keeping of the faith ” 
Saint Paul found his vision of the future life of im¬ 
mense practical advantage. His present life is filled 
with the exultation of a splendid hope: 

“ Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown.” I am 
sure that this hope was a great power in Paul’s life. The 
certainty of the future was a mighty fulcrum where¬ 
by Paul lifted the burden of “ this present world.” 
It is just this practical value of belief in the future life 
that we so often fail to realize. So many of us hold a 
vague general hope that there may be a life after 
death of greater opportunity, but we hold it so vaguely 
and feebly that it has next to no influence upon our 
present actions and feelings. It is an intellectual inter- 



“ Saint Paul's Swan-Song ” 


241 


est and nothing more. Not so the apostolic belief. 
The New Testament insists on the anticipation of the 
future by faith as a factor of real practical influence 
in the present. It calls upon us to “ have our citizen¬ 
ship in heaven,” to know “ Him and the power of his 
resurrection.” It speaks of the achievements of men of 
faith and then gives us the explanation: “for they de¬ 
sire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore 
God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he 
hath prepared for them a city.” 

The fact of immortality was ever present to the 
minds of these first heroes of our faith—it flowed over 
their daily difficulties with tidal force, lifting the 
stranded barks of hope and faith upon the broad 
bosom of the sea. 

Does the future inspire and help you in that way? 
Have you a daily habit of lifting your eyes to the 
glorious destiny God intends for you? It will humble 
you and cleanse you, and help you to keep faith. As 
John writes, “ He that hath this hope set on him puri- 
fieth himself—even as he is pure.” 

Let us harness our hope to the hard facts of life. 
For ages electricity was playing about the habitations 
of men—a wild untamed, undiscovered power, strik¬ 
ing fear into the human mind. But at last one man, 
Michael Faraday, of blessed memory, entered into its 
practical possibilities, and made a way into them for 
the race. Similarly immortality has ever been the 
plain fact of God’s universe, but long it remained un¬ 
discovered, and was then discovered only to terrorize 



242 


Cod's Better Thing 


and confuse the soul, until our great High Priest, 
Jesus Christ, entered within the veil, and returned, the 
herald of a New Creation, the Lord of Deathless and 
Eternal Life. And since then the great future has 
dominated and molded countless human souls in the 
conduct of their present life. It has lighted their hearts 
and homes amid great darkness, and driven fearlessly 
onward the chariot of their moral achievement. 

In the midst of the most hopeless conditions men 
have turned their eyes with hope and faith to the 
better time and country, to the new world-order, God’s 
better thing, which is perfect in the life to come and 
which is ever invading the life that is; and thus their 
hearts have kept brave and strong. It is the great 
truth Lowell sang so eloquently: 

Truth for ever on the scaffold? 

Wrong for ever on the throne? 

But that scaffold sn>ays the future, 

And behind the dim unknown 

Standeth God, within the shadows. 

Keeping watch above his own. 

During the recent war we had striking proof of the 
value of possessing the “ reversion of the future! ” 
The time element plays a big part in life, and the side 
that wins is not the side that obtains necessarily the im¬ 
mediate advantage, but the side that has “ staying 
power ” and for which “ time ” fights. 

Ah, Christian soul, in your battle of life, this is your 
strength, time is on your side, you hold the heritage of 



“ Saint Paul's Swan-Song " 


243 


the future, every day that passes brings you nearer the 
great goal. 

Thus, by this glorious hope we grow strong to live 
and strong to die. 

“Iam ready,” says Saint Paul. It is a great thing 
to be able to say. Let us open our hearts to his faith, 
his simple trust in Jesus, his simple daily habit of 
loyalty to the Lord, his simple appropriation of the 
future glory, and ours too will be his readiness, his 
peace in the hour of the great and glorious change we 
miscall Death and should call Life. 

And so, beside the silent sea, 

I wait the muffled oar; 

No harm from Him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where his islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air, 

I only know I can not drift 
Beyond his love and care. 


THE END 












































« 





























































Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct, 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 










































